EU Keeps Its Ban on Hormone-Treated Beef

The European Union upheld a ban on imports of hormone-treated meat and proceeded Monday with a law to reduce the noise of plane engines.

EU foreign ministers said they won’t make a May 13 deadline, set by the World Trade Organization, to end their decade-old ban on imports of hormone-treated beef from the United States and Canada.

German Deputy Foreign Minister Guenter Verheugen said the European Commission, the EU executive body, will negotiate with Washington on what compensation the U.S. and Canada can claim to recoup damages resulting from the ban.

And in a move likely to exacerbate trade relations, the EU ministers said they will enact a law this month requiring jetliners to be equipped with noise-lowering “hush kits.”

Washington says the law is discriminatory. Congress has threatened retaliation with the imposition of a flight ban on the Franco-British Concorde jetliner, the world’s only supersonic passenger jet.