Geneva - The United States said the European Union must immediately lift its decade-old ban on imports of hormone-treated beef to come in line with the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
U.S. trade ambassador Rita Hayes told reporters after a meeting of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body that if the EU kept the veto -- as officials have indicated it will -- it would be undermining the authority of the trade body.
Hayes told the DSB that to comply with WTO panel and appeals board rulings finding fault with the ban, which U.S. and Canadian exporters say is costing them billions of dollars, the EU would have to rescind it.
"It needs to be done immediately," she told a news briefing later. "There is no wiggle-room on this, and there can be no difference in interpretation (of the rulings)."
The row is the most high-profile of a series of trade disputes involving food safety issues between the two big trading powers. Canada, Australia and New Zealand have strongly supported the U.S. case.
EU ambassador Roderick Abbott told the DSB that Brussels "intends to fulfil its international obligations under the WTO" and was fully committed to the trade body's rules and system.
But although a statement issued in Brussels earlier in the day said the EU would be starting a scientific "risk assessment" of the dangers to humans from eating hormone-treated beef to comply with the WTO rulings, Abbott made no reference to this.
He said the 15-nation bloc was now examining "options for compliance with a view to implementation in as short a timeframe as possible" but would still need "a reasonable period of time."
A risk assessment was one option, and the EU would be discussing the whole issue in the next two weeks with U.S. and Canadian trade envoys, he told reporters.
EU officials have argued publicly that all they need to do to come into line with the final appeals board ruling in the case is to carry out the risk assessment.
The United States and Canada reject this interpretation, and insist that scientific studies have already shown that beef treated with growth hormones poses no danger to consumers.
Canadian envoy Elaine Feldman told the DSB on Friday that Ottawa believed there was no need for another assessment and indicated that even if it went ahead with one Brussels should still remove the ban while it was under way.
Hayes told her news briefing that any EU action short of cancelling the ban "is not acceptable and threatens the shared interests of the world community in an effective, rules-based trading system."
If Brussels sought to avoid complying with the rulings, she suggested, it would invite other countries in the 132-member body to flout decisions of dispute panels -- whose findings are supposed to be implemented within 18 months.
She would be making this clear in a meeting with EU Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, who is due in Geneva before the end of the month, the U.S. envoy declared.
Canada's Feldman voiced similar concerns.
"Compliance is critical in order to maintain the integrity of the dispute settlement system process and to achieve predictability and stability for the multilateral trading system," she told the DSB.
The system, which has handled some 120 disputes since the trade body's launch just over three years ago and whose final rulings are supposed to be binding, is widely seen as a major success story.
But neutral diplomats say there is growing concern that the lack of any structure providing for a WTO interpretation of its panel or appeals board rulings leaves a gap in the system which, if used by the big powers, will be followed by others.
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