EU Takes Defiant Pose
On Beef Ban Deadline

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Facing an impending deadline to lift its decade-long ban on most U.S. beef and having thumbed its nose at the World Trade Organization over the issue for two years, the European Union now appears to have decided it will respond with both thumbs.

The EU is considering a ban on all U.S. beef starting June 15 because traces of growth hormones have been found in some imports, officials said last week.

The European Union imports only beef certified as hormone-free, a measure that has been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. The U.S. beef industry claims the requirement costs producers and exporters $250 million a year in lost sales.

Banning all U.S. beef imports would strain an already testy trade relationship between the EU and the United States, both of which have been arguing for years over commerce in bananas, steel, aircraft and farm goods.

Since 1988, the 15-nation EU has been importing only hormone-free beef shipped from certified U.S. slaughterhouses. Those imports total 7700 tons and are worth $20 million a year.

The certified slaughterhouses are on a list that must occasionally be renewed. The European Commission agreed to renew that list until June 15 and possibly ban all beef imports after that, said EU spokesman Gerard Kiely.

He blamed the possible ban on problems ensuring that hormone-treated beef does not enter the EU.

A proposal for a total import ban will be given to EU veterinary officials this week. If they concur, the proposal will return to the commission for final approval as early as April 30.

Kiely said meat inspections between May and November found hormone residue in U.S. beef shipped to Western Europe as hormone-free. The inspections found residue in 12 percent of 500 samples, he said.

The planned import ban is under consideration even as the EU struggles to comply with a WTO ruling that declared the hormone-treated beef ban illegal. The EU has until May 13 to comply.

The WTO, acting on complaints by the United States and Canada, ruled in 1997 that the EU import ban was illegal because its scientific basis relates to supposed risks posed by growth hormones themselves rather than to any actual residues in beef.