Brussels, 20/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - During Pascal Lamy's two day visit to Washington, the USA again raised the temperature in the face of European procrastination to open their borders to US deliveries of products containing GMOs. Passing through Brussels on Thursday and Friday, after a brief stopover in Geneva, Ambassador Allen Johnson negotiator in chief for agriculture at the Bureau of Trade Representatives, considered that the situation had got worse since the European Parliament had intervened in the issue over GMOs. He also asserted that the USA was committed to complete the range of certain agricultural subventions, while attempting to dissipate a certain number of worries about the "Farm Bill", the range of which has alarmed competitors and partners at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
"We have had some good discussions today with European leaders both on multi-lateral questions (negotiations on the Agricultural Chapter of the Doha Agenda - Editor's note) and bilateral issues", explained Mr Johnson moving on to the issue of bio-technologies. Mr Johnson explained that this month would mark the fourth anniversary of the moratorium on authorisations that had been set up, which meant a loss of USD 200 million a year. He explained that they had been more than patient on this issue, hoping that the EU would solve its internal problems and give approval, which hadn't as yet occurred. He added that their agricultural community, members of Congress were losing patience and were very worried while the situation was degenerating while legislation on labelling and traceability was passing through the European Parliament. He explained that they were increasingly frustrated, which was leading the administration to consider other options including resolving the disputes for finding a better way to solve the problem. "It's in Europe's own interest," he explained that, "the development of the bio-tech industry grows". "I know that European leaders have recognised this" but at the same time, "a negative environment was being created" as opposed to development…We think that there ought to be a voluntary system that would allow consumers to be sure that what there is on the labels guarantees that there is no GMOs… and the issue on the current proposals offers no way of detecting whether meat comes from an animal fed on GMOs etc". This situation created the possibility of fraud, he added