Washington - The United States expects the European Union to allow U.S. imports of hormone-treated beef after a May 13 deadline, regardless of whether the EU has completed safety studies on the meat, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said.
“We expect them to comply with the World Trade Organisation ruling,” Glickman said. “A delay in studies is not part of that compliance.”
Glickman was responding to earlier remarks in Brussels by a European Commission spokesman who said that some of the studies the EU has ordered may not be ready until after May 13.
The EU ordered about eight risk-assessment studies after it lost an appeal to the WTO last year. The WTO has upheld the U.S. assertion that hormone-treated beef exports are safe and the meat should be allowed into the EU.
U.S. trade negotiators say the WTO rulings mean the EU must drop its ban by May 13, but the EU earlier said it believed it only had to complete the studies by May 13. The dispute began in 1989, when U.S. beef sales to the EU totalled about $100 million annually.
The hormones are widely used in the United States to help cattle grow bigger and faster.
The United States has threatened retaliatory sanctions unless the EU complies with the WTO ruling.
“We know there is a deadline of May 13. Now we are discussing what are the different options for dealing with the situation on May 13,” the EU spokesman said in Brussels.
Glickman spoke to reporters after testifying before a Senate panel, where one farm-state lawmaker urged the U.S. Agriculture Department chief to prepare potential sanctions against the EU in the beef dispute.
Sen. Kit Bond, a Missouri Republican, said the Clinton administration should act to win access to the market for U.S.
cattle ranchers.
“I've got some cattle farmers who wonder if it's going to take General Patton's army to liberate Europe,” said Sen. Kit Bond, a Republican from Missouri. “They haven't had a good steak over there in 10 years.”
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