It seems impossible to have a European and an American veterinarian talk with them coming to blows, or almost. Everything divides the food security experts between the two shores of the Atlantic, to the point that the USA and the European Union have still not restarted negotiations on an agreement for the recognition of mutual practices begun more than ten years ago. The old continent, in the name of defending its regions and its ancestral practices, defends its camembert made with untreated milk. America balks at putting it on its market, eyeing suspiciously products that offer uncertain health guarantees: nothing compares to pasteurising.

It is in this state of mind that both sides fail to find common ground both on the question of the fight against the development of bacteria on chicken and the consensus on the use of growth hormones for bovine or the spread of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The result is an increase in disagreement, including in the framework of the World Trade Organisation.

Since 1999, each year the USA and Canada have imposed respectively €79 million and €8 million in penalties on Europe in the form of import taxes on mustard, pork and other EU products due to the EU’s rejection of hormone-enhanced beef.

On the issue of GMO, Washington has let the threat of similar sanctions hover for years, due to the accumulated delays by Europe in putting high-tech seeds from US laboratories on its market. But to avoid coming to a deadlock situation, as is the case for beef, no sanctions have been put in place for the moment. But till when?

Likewise on the use of chlorine baths to disinfect the carcasses of poultry. EU agriculture ministers sent an objection to the USA, which demanded the return of American chicken to the dinner table of EU consumers: one of their priorities for the Transatlantic Economic Council. Europeans feel that the American methods are too radical and, above all, much less costly than the Community techniques of refrigeration throughout the production chain, allowing the development of bacteria to be avoided rather than eliminating them at the end of the chain. As it has not got its way, sooner or later the USA will probably demand international arbitration, all the more so since they reject the accusations made on the risks for human health linked to the use of chlorine.

Commercial differences

The disagreements also concern purely commercial issues, with no link to the health issues. This is the case, for example, with the rice dossier. The European Commission is ready to open negotiations with Washington to change the 2004 agreement on the Community import regime for US rice. This is a complex agreement, whose functioning displeases the Americans. Their irritation is the result of the reform of the common organisation of the rice market in 2003, which obliges Brussels to modify the commercial concessions offered to third countries that supply rice, under the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Cloning

Moreover, it is a good bet that the reasons for the new tensions will not fail to appear over the coming years. To this effect, it is probable that a consensus on the use of cloning as a reproduction technique for farm animals will be very difficult to obtain between the two shores of the Atlantic. The USA has just stated that the consumption of products from cloning or their offspring does not pose any problems. They have already challenged the quality of the scientific work carried out by the European Food Safety Authority, which had its doubts. The European Commission, concerned not to rile Washington and not to discourage scientific research, has refused for the moment to ban cloning, even temporarily. But animal wellbeing associations and consumer associations, relayed by MEPs, demand a total and sustainable embargo on this technique of manipulating a living being, linked, on this side of the Atlantic, to GMOs.

The disagreements also concern purely commercial issues