Use Of Border Measures To Enforce Environmental Standards Not That Easy

The EU seems to be waking up to potential pitfalls in plans to introduce border taxes on US biofuel imports. This from the Guardian....

Would The EU Use Processes That It Bans From Others?

The Financial Times also reports today that EU poultry producers have been caught using the same chlorine-wash processes on exported poultry meat that it bans for imports. Which EU member could possibly use this disgusting process in such a hypocritical way? According to a senior EU official “The French use [chlorine washing] for exports to Saudi Arabia.”

Is the US not threatening action in the WTO on the ban? And hasn’t The European Food Safety Authority found that chlorine washing “does not indicate a safety concern”. No wonder that the EU is considering a change to its import rules. And surely no one could object to the removal of a ban that is clearly a breach of WTO rules? Apparently some can, more than half the EU Agriculture Ministers want things left as they are. Standards used for protectionist purposes by Europe? Never!!

Standards The New Battleground? Never...

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.