Hamburg - Latest rows over agricultural issues between the United States and the European Union are not serious enough to threaten world trade progress, World Trade Organization chief Renato Ruggiero said.
“They are a routine feature of trade reality,” WTO's director general Ruggiero said in response to a question at a news conference.
“They cannot be seen in any way as a danger to the initiation of negotiations towards a new trade accord.”
Ruggiero, who was in Hamburg for a Friedrich Ebert Foundation event, said he had no doubt the Europeans were respecting Uruguay round committments demanding trading nations started a push to clear the way for new negotiations from the end of 1999 onwards.
The multilateral exchange of information on agricultural issues was going well and the disturbances of recent weeks were not impacting negatively on the committment of the major parties involved, he added.
US/EU rows have centred on the EU's slow approval of genetically engineered crops, EU opposition to hormone treated beef, subsidised barley sales from the EU to the US and the imposition of quotas on EU wheat gluten by the US
Washington has also signalled it plans to use the next round of WTO negotiations to prise open EU farm markets in cooperation with the Cairns group of agricultural exporters.
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