Worrying article in today’s Financial Times. Germany has joined France in demanding that China, India and the US should be forced to adopt higher environmental and health standards if they want to export food products to the EU. Which German Minister made these comments? Horst Seehofer, Farm Minister. Of course, Germany and France do not see this call as protectionist, and the French anyway accept that any new standards would have to be negotiated in the WTO (does anyone believe that this helpful suggestion is intended to improve prospects from the Doha Development Agenda negotiations?) Moreover all the EU would be doing is insisting that other countries met EU standards. How unfair could that be?
Update - we see that The Inquiring Mind has a fuller post on this.
