Trade Rep Sees No Indication
EU Complying With Beef Edict

GENEVA —(AP)— Days after a temporary ceasefire was called in the trade battle between the United States and the European Union over bananas, another row over food seemed set to reignite Monday.

U.S. trade ambassador Rita Hayes said she sees no sign that the European Union will lift barriers on imports of beef treated with certain growth hormones. The World Trade Organization has ruled that the import ban is illegal.

But the European Union claims the use of the hormones is linked to an increased risk of cancer and hopes to prove it with scientific tests.

The American beef industry protested that the ban, which has been in place since 1988, was losing it annual sales in Europe of some $250 million and the United States took it to the WTO.

After a review of the EU's progress towards implementing the ruling, Hayes said she could see no likelihood that the EU would comply with the ruling by the deadline of May 13.

``The date is fast approaching, and so far the (EU) has not, to our knowledge, begun any legislative or administrative process to withdraw the offending measures,'' she said.

The ruling said the European trade policy was illegal because it was not backed up by a proper risk analysis. Now the European Union is trying to complete scientific work which it says will justify its decision to block the hormone-treated beef.

``A number of scientific studies are now underway,'' an EU report to the WTO meeting said.

If the EU has not acted to the satisfaction of the WTO by the deadline, the United States may try to impose sanctions, as it is already planning to do on the question of the EU's banana import regime.

The banana battle brought the 133-country WTO's dispute body to a halt last week while the two trading powers and their supporters fought over procedural matters.

The case has now been referred to a WTO dispute panel, with the U.S. insisting it will bring in up to $520 million of sanctions on March 3 and the EU claiming its banana policies are now in line with WTO rules.

Hayes told reporters she was not yet looking at sanctions over beef, and she was hoping the issue could still be sorted out.

``We are very much in the hopes that the EU will sit down with us like we have continually asked,'' she said.

``It doesn't look very good when we have been through a difficult period with them with the banana dispute.''