European Union looks to avoid GMOs at WTO talks in Seattle
By Michael Mann
BRUSSELS (Reuters): The European Union may be a leading advocate of a wide-ranging round of trade liberalization talks, but one item it does not want included in the negotiations is trade in genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Instead, Europe will push its World Trade Organization (WTO) partners in talks in Seattle later this month to accept its right to invoke what it calls the "precautionary principle".
Under this principle, trade restrictions on health grounds need not be based on absolute proof of risk.
As it grapples with reforms to its approvals process for new GMOs, the 15 member bloc is satisfied that the procedure is fully WTO-compatible.
The EU hopes that recognition of the precautionary principle would cover its back on a number of food health issues, including both GMOs and hormones in beef, which are banned in the EU.
"The United States argues that if it accepts something on what it believes is a solid scientific basis, everyone else should accept it," said a senior European Commission agriculture official.
"We say they can't force us to accept products on our market that we don't want to take, because we have reason to believe they may present health problems."
The root of the latest transatlantic problem is difficulties Washington has faced in shipping bulk commodities like maize and soya to Europe because of consumer resistance to GMOs.
The United States says it has lost some US$200 million in maize sales alone over the past two years. Shipments have been barred from Europe because the U.S. authorities could not guarantee they were free of varieties not yet approved in the EU.
With consumer concern in Europe growing about the safety of foods derived from GM crops, no new GMOs have been approved since April 1998.
But the Union argues this does not amount to an official -- and illegal -- moratorium on such crops. Procedures exist to place GMOs on the market. Its states have merely failed to back any new ones for 18 months.
The U.S. Agriculture Department last Tuesday described the EU's attachment to the precautionary principle as "completely inappropriate" and a "very negative development for WTO rules."
It will seek talks in the WTO to establish clear rules for approving GMOs if a new high-level experts' group on the issue, suggested last month by President Clinton and Commission President Romano Prodi, fails to bear fruit.
Both Japan and Canada have already said the issue should be addressed in some way during the round, even if they have stopped short of backing a specific biotechnology agreement.
With the recent dispute over hormone beef still fresh in everyone's mind and emotions over GMOs running high, no one can predict what parameters will be adopted for talks on food at Seattle.
"We haven't asked for biotech to be included in the round (of WTO talks)," said a Commission official. "Only after Seattle will we have a clear indication whether or how it will be in there."
Part of the problem the EU faces is a lack of clarity about who runs the policy. Different responsibilities lie with the Commission's enterprise, environment, health, agriculture and trade departments. The environment department, especially, takes a hard line.
The United States "doesn't understand the thinking behind the precautionary principle," said EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom recently.
"They put more emphasis on scientific proof; we say you can't always do that. It's enough to think there may be a risk."
The Commission, the EU's executive, also believes the long- stalled international Biosafety Protocol can go a long way to regulating trade in GMOs, avoiding the need for a specific clause in the WTO.
Some 150 nations will meet in Montreal in January in a last- ditch effort to save the protocol. Europe insists it must not be overridden by whatever comes out of the next WTO round.
Window: With the recent dispute over hormone beef still fresh in everyone's mind and emotions over GMOs running high, no one can predict what parameters will be adopted for talks on food at Seattle.