Brussels, 15/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - As EUROPE anticipated (2 October, p.13), a new EU directive banning the use of 6 growth hormones for cattle on the basis of a "complete and thorough" scientific assessment of the risks to consumers of meat entered into force on 15 October. In so doing, the EU feels that it has completed the procedure required by World Trade Association (WTO) rules to be able to keep its embargo on meat containing hormones in place, and to have American and Canadian sanctions removed, which have cost 127 million dollars a year in exports since July 1999. Washington, which maintains that American beef is perfectly safe and should therefore be allowed for sale in Europe, was quick to react to the news, which points to the possible renewing of Euro-American disputes on food safety versus market access, before the multilateral arbitration service.
In a brief statement which was published at the same time as the new directive appeared in the Official Journal of the EC (with a deadline of twelve months for all Member States to put it into practice), the Commissioner for Trade, Pascal Lamy, called for "the United States and Canada to lift their trade sanctions against the EU". "The measure taken today means that we fully intend to respect our obligations under the WTO" and "we have not stinted in our efforts to put this new legislation into place", he said. David Byrne, his counterpart for Public Health and Consumer Protection, explained that the EU has carried out an analysis of all identifiable risks on the basis of current scientific knowledge. "Public health and consumer protection are at the heart of the EU's conception of food safety, which is guided by independent scientific opinion", he added. The Union will now undertake the appropriate procedures in Geneva to get the sanctions lifted, inform the United States and Canada of the adoption of its new directive and also notify this to the WTO's dispute settlement body, said the Commission's spokesperson.
The directive, which was proposed several months after the American compensatory measures, arrived this summer at the end of a legislative journey that had lasted three years, punctuated by considerable scientific work and deliberations between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. These new provisions, unlike the regime they modify and which the WTO ruled without scientific basis, were carefully drawn up in the light of expert opinion which concluded back in 1999 (in the "Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures relating to Public Health") that more or less serious risks existed for consumers of hormone-treated beef, especially for a notoriously carcinogenic substance, oestradiol 17 B. As for the five other hormones (which are still used in American breeding), the SCVMPH felt that given existing scientific knowledge, it is not possible to give a quantitative estimation for the risk to consumers. The reviewed and corrected embargo confirms the ban on hormonal substances to promote growth in animals, and considerably limits scope to use oestradiol 17 B in the meat sector- for medicinal purposes, or in zootechnical treatments, under strict veterinary supervision. The only allowed uses are for treating maceration and foetal mummification in cattle, pyometra in cattle and, lastly, to induce heat in cattle, equidaes, sheep and goats, but this last use is to be phased out by September 2006. As for the other hormones (testosterone, progesterone, trenbolone acetate, zeranol and melengestrol acetate), the directive maintains its provisional ban. In the meantime it will gather "more complete scientific information" and thus clarify "progress made in scientific knowledge on these substances", on which the Commission promises "regularly" to take stock.