U.S., others win ruling on biotech food

GENEVA – The WTO has ruled that the EU broke international trade rules by stopping imports of genetically modified foods, officials said Tuesday.

The preliminary judgment by a World Trade Organization panel concluded that the European Union had an effective ban on biotech foods for six years from 1998, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is a confidential report.

The report sided with a legal complaint brought by the United States, Canada and Argentina over an EU moratorium on approval of new biotech foods, the officials said. The panel ruled that individual bans in six EU member states – Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg – violated international trade rules.

The EU and United States declined to comment as diplomats were still studying the details late Tuesday. The ruling – said to be one of the most complex the commerce body has issued – runs to about 1,000 pages. It had been delayed several times.

The complainants claim that there is no scientific evidence for the EU’s actions and that the moratorium has been an unfair barrier to producers of biotech foods who want to export to the EU.

An environmental group, Friends of the Earth, says the case undermines the right of governments to decide for themselves what is safe for their citizens, and pressures other countries – especially developing nations – to accept genetically modified foods against their will.

The ruling is good news not so much because it will open the door to more European customers for U.S. businesses, but because it will set an example for other world markets, said Leon Corzine, chairman of the National Corn Grower’s Association, based in suburban St. Louis.