U.S. Delays Challenge to Europe's Ban on Modified Food

[Guest guest]

News Update From The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

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Dear News Update Subscribers,

 

We have good news to report, at least in the short term. According to

the New York Times article posted below, the Bush administration has

decided to delay filing a World Trade Organization (WTO) complaint

against the European Union (EU) over their moratorium on genetically

engineered foods.

 

The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods has had an ACTION

ALERT in place for several weeks encouraging the Bush Administration not

to file a WTO complaint. Perhaps our e-mails and letters are having an

impact. Or at least we may be getting the Bush administration's

attention on this issue to some degree.

 

If you have not yet participated in our ACTION ALERT on this issue, you

may do so on our web site at:

http://www.thecampaign.org/alert-WTO.php

 

If you have only sent e-mails, please follow up by sending our printed

form letters via the U.S. Postal Service. Thanks!

 

Craig Winters

Executive Director

The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

 

The Campaign

PO Box 55699

Seattle, WA 98155

Tel: 425-771-4049

Fax: 603-825-5841

E-mail: label

Web Site: http://www.thecampaign.org

 

Mission Statement: " To create a national grassroots consumer campaign

for the purpose of lobbying Congress and the President to pass

legislation that will require the labeling of genetically engineered

foods in the United States. "

 

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U.S. Delays Challenge to Europe's Ban on Modified Food

By ELIZABETH BECKER

 

The New York Times

February 4, 2003

 

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 - With war looming in Iraq, the Bush administration

has decided against antagonizing its European allies and has postponed

filing a case against the European Union for its ban on genetically

modified food, according to senior administration officials.

 

" There is no point in testing Europeans on food while they are being

tested on Iraq, " a senior White House official said, speaking on

background.

 

Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, had warned

that the administration would decide soon whether to sue the Europeans

for what he called their " immoral " opposition to genetically modified

food that was leading to starvation in the developing world.

 

But a cabinet meeting to consider the suit was canceled this week as

European agricultural officials came to Washington to argue for

patience.

 

The conflict will resurface soon, however. Mr. Zoellick said in an

interview that he believed genetically modified food could help

alleviate hunger worldwide and that he wanted the European opposition to

be confronted and unfounded fears erased so that developing nations

would accept food from genetically modified crops.

 

Experts agree that the United States could win a case at the World Trade

Organization and force a lifting of the four-year old ban.

 

The ultimate resolution of this case, however, will rest on labeling -

not food aid - and promises to pit European ideas of food regulation

against American notions about free trade.

 

Many European consumers are demanding labels that identify which food

has been genetically modified, while the American agricultural industry

is just as strongly opposed to labeling, saying it gives the food a

negative connotation.

 

" The U.S. is afraid that by starting to distinguish which food is

genetically modified, then they will have to distinguish energy

standards, toxic standards that are different than those the European

promotes, " said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Watch.

" It's using trade agreements to determine domestic health, safety and

environmental rules. "

 

Agriculture Department officials say this is nonsense, that the United

States does not require labeling, so why should Europe.

 

" That implies that there is something wrong with genetically modified

food, " said Elsa Murano, the Agriculture Department's undersecretary for

food safety. " It would be another kind of trade barrier. "

 

The agricultural industry also complains about the cost of the proposed

labels.

 

" Labeling is a sham, " said Mary Kay Thatcher, lobbyist for American Farm

Bureau, a powerful agricultural group. " It would be so expensive, it

would shut down our exports. "

 

Franz Fischler, the European farm commissioner, said in an address here

today that the problem could be resolved within the year if the United

States agreed that the products deemed safe would be labeled as

genetically modified.

 

His remarked were echoed earlier here by Margaret Beckett, the British

minister in charge of food and the environment, who said both sides of

the argument had to understand the serious cultural differences

underlying the disagreement.

 

" Extravagant claims are sometimes made on either side of the argument, "

she said. " Whether we like it or not, there is an expectation of

traceability and labeling of all kinds of products among European

consumers. You are not going to convince them that G.M. products should

be an exception to what is the norm. "

 

While European nations agree on the need for labeling in the face of

deep consumer fears, American lawmakers have had a more mixed record.

 

Although it took 12 years of lobbying by farmers, chefs and

environmentalists, the Agriculture Department last year created an

official organic label to show consumers what produce has been raised

without conventional pesticides or fertilizers, antibiotics or growth

hormones.

 

In last year's farm bill, Congress included a provision opposed by much

of agribusiness that requires that all meat, fish and produce be labeled

with its country of origin within two years.

 

" The United States is not monolithic, " said John Audley of Carnegie

Endowment. " Business groups may have to yield on labeling while

activists will have to yield on allowing genetically modified food to be

sold and let consumers decide what they want. "

 

Already, Canada has complained that the new country of origin labeling

will restrict its trade with the United States, especially its meat. In

a study released last month, Canadian officials also complained about

the cost and suggested that the new provision should be withdrawn.

 

That is unlikely until the European ban on genetically modified food is

lifted and the issue of labeling is confronted head on.