 991209 EU Says Beef Compensation Must Reflect SanctionsDecember 1, 1999 Seattle, WA - Any European Union compensation to the United States to settle a row over hormone-treated beef would have to be reduced to take account of damage U.S. sanctions have inflicted on EU industry, EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler said. "One thing is clear. We must take into account the effects which the sanctions had in the last months," Fischler said. However, that formula immediately ran into opposition from U.S. cattle industry, which says it has suffered ten years of injury because of the EU. The United States slapped $117 million of sanctions on EU exports earlier this year after winning a WTO case against the bloc's decade-old ban on imports of beef from cattle reared with artificial growth hormones. The EU wants to replace the sanctions with compensation in the form of expanded access to the EU market for hormone-free U.S. beef. The United States is open to this proposal. But U.S. hormone-free beef exports were suspended earlier this year after the EU said traces of hormones were found in meat. The U.S. cattle industry is not interested in looking at any EU compensation proposal until the hormone-free beef program is up and running again, Chandler Keys, executive vice president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said. "We haven't seen anything from the EU. But when they do bring something, it can't be an embarrassing proposal," Keys said. "Don't bring some kind of convoluted program that makes it look like the EU is the victim." Fischler said he hoped a solution could be found soon to the hormone-free beef problem. He said any EU compensation should be less than $117 million because U.S. sanctions had hit industrial sectors which had little to do with agriculture. These industries had suffered from the sanctions and would not automatically regain their market if sanctions were lifted, he said. "So we have to touch upon this point in our negotiations," Fischler said, declining to say how much the EU thought compensation should be.
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