U.S. Sets Deadline for EU to Lift Beef Ban

The Clinton Administration will give the European Union until the end of the year to lift an import ban on most U.S. beef before complaining to the World Trade Organization, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said Monday.

Glickman met with EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler, who has proposed a conference in October to study the safety of U.S. beef from hormone-treated cattle.

“The conference can be a constructive thing if it is not an attempt to delay the issue forever and ever,” Glickman said afterward. The Agriculture Department maintains that the beef is safe and that the ban, imposed in 1989, is an unfair trade restriction.

The department estimates that U.S. producers could sell $100 million worth of beef each year to the 15 nations in the European Union if the ban were lifted.

The beef issue could become a test of the WTO, which was created Jan. 1 to enforce a world trade agreement, Glickman said.

If the United States complains to the WTO, it would start a lengthy dispute-resolution process.

Fischler said European consumers are worried about the use of growth hormones, but a conference with scientific evidence might settle the issue.

“We have agreed that, after the congress, we will try to quickly find a solution,” Fischler, an Austrian who took office in January, said at a news conference.