Voluntary Report - public distribution

**Date:** 8/29/2003

**GAIN Report Number:** E23166

E23166

**European Union**

**Trade Policy Monitoring**

**EU requests WTO Panel against Australian Quarantine restrictions**

**2003**

**Approved by:**

![](media/image1.wmf)Norval Francis

#### U.S. Mission to the EU, Brussels

**Prepared by:**

Peter Talks

**Report Highlights:**

The EU has requested a WTO Panel against Australian quarantine
restrictions. The EU argues that it respects Australia\'s right to
establish an appropriate level of protection, but that Australian rules
are not based on scientific risk assessment principles and are acting to
block imports without scientific justification.

Includes PSD Changes: No

Includes Trade Matrix: No

Unscheduled Report

Brussels USEU \[BE2\]

\[E2\]

In a press release today, the European Commission announced that it had
requested a WTO Panel to establish the legality of Australian quarantine
rules in relation to WTO rules.

Using rhetoric that echoes that of the U.S. over the U.S., Canadian and
Argentine request for a panel over the EU's blocking of imports of
biotech crops, the EU argues that Australian quarantine measures are not
based on scientific risk assessment and block imports without scientific
justification.

**Visit our website:** our website
**[www.useu.be/agri/usda.html]{.underline}** provides a broad range of
useful information on EU import rules and food laws and allows easy
access to USEU reports, trade information and other practical
information. E-mail: <AgUSEUBrussels@usda.gov>

**Related reports from USEU Brussels:**

  --------------- ------------------------------------ ------------------
  **Report        **Title**                            **Date Released**
  Number**                                             

  E23161          EU Scientific Steering Committee:    8/19/03
                  move away from science based risk    
                  management                           

  E23160          US Requests WTO panel on biotech     8/19/03
                  crops                                
  --------------- ------------------------------------ ------------------

**Visit our website:** our website
**[www.useu.be/agri/usda.html]{.underline}** provides a broad range of
useful information on EU import rules and food laws and allows easy
access to USEU reports, trade information and other practical
information. E-mail: <AgUSEUBrussels@usda.gov>

#### Summary of GAIN Report E23161 "EU Scientific Steering Committee: move away from science based risk management":

In April 2003, the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), under the
umbrella of the European Commission's Health and Consumer Directorate
General adopted its "Second Report on the Harmonization of Risk
Assessment Procedures". The report includes a section which advocates
the inclusion of "quality of life" factors in scientific risk
assessments. According to the report, "quality of life" factors are of a
multidimensional nature and cover such aspects as human functional and
psychological health. These factors could "cover the physical impact of
the risk factors as well as the perceived impact wherever it is
possible."

Full text of the Commission Press Release follows:

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  **EU brings WTO challenge against Australia's quarantine measures**   

  --------------------------------------------------------------------- --

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  [DN: IP/03/1184]{.underline}     [Date: 29/08/2003]{.underline}

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TXT:
[FR](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=FR&display=)
[EN](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=EN&display=)
[DE](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=DE&display=)
[ES](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=ES&display=)

PDF:
[FR](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.getfile=gf&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=FR&type=PDF)
[EN](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.getfile=gf&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=EN&type=PDF)
[DE](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.getfile=gf&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=DE&type=PDF)
[ES](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.getfile=gf&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=ES&type=PDF)

DOC:
[FR](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.getfile=gf&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=FR&type=DOC)
[EN](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.getfile=gf&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=EN&type=DOC)
[DE](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.getfile=gf&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=DE&type=DOC)
[ES](http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.getfile=gf&doc=IP/03/1184|0|RAPID&lg=ES&type=DOC)

**IP/03/1184**

Brussels, 29 August 2003

**EU brings WTO challenge against Australia's quarantine measures**

***The European Union has today asked the WTO to rule on the legality of
the Australian quarantine regime applied to imports of a large number of
food products of EU interest. Consultations between Australia and the
EU, held in May 2003, failed to solve problems of access to the
Australian market. The EU has therefore been left with no alternative
other than to challenge this restrictive trade practices through the WTO
dispute settlement system. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said:
"Despite Australia\'s constant claims to be the leading force of free
agricultural trade, its own quarantine system continues to block
unjustifiably the import of a number of agricultural products into
Australia. Contrary to WTO rules, these import prohibitions are not
based on a scientific risk assessment. The EU will continue to use WTO
procedures to ensure that Australia lives up to its legal obligations,
and to its own rhetoric on open trade in agriculture."***

The EU request follows formal WTO consultations (which is the first
stage in the WTO dispute settlement process) held with Australia in May
2003. The dispute was not resolved in the consultations. The EU has
therefore decided to ask for a WTO Panel to be established to rule on
the legality of the Australian measures.

The WTO panel will rule on the legality of Australia\'s treatment of
certain agricultural products of European interest under its quarantine
system. The EU considers that the restrictions applied to those
agricultural products breach WTO rules, set out in the WTO Agreement on
Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), which covers regimes dealing
with human, animal and plant health.

Australia believes that as it is free from many animal and plant
diseases prevalent in the rest of the world, its conservative approach
to quarantine risks is justified. The EU does not dispute Australia\'s
right to set an appropriate level of protection. The EU does however
consider that Australia should not unfairly protect its own market and
producers by imposing quarantine rules which block imports without
scientific justification, often for many years.

Some of the market access problems faced by EU exporters include:

-   An outright ban on imports of a range of agricultural products such
    as fruit and vegetables, animal and meat products without a
    scientific risk assessment.

-   The products concerned range from tomatoes to fresh citrus fruit,
    apples, peaches, nectarines, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, apricots,
    eggs, pigmeat and poultry meat.

-   Extremely restrictive conditions are applied to imports of pigmeat.
    In particular, Australia only allows imports of deboned pigmeat from
    Denmark, which must be heat treated in Australia. Without any
    apparent justification, Australia refuses to allow heat treatment in
    the country of origin or imports of bone in meat.

Australia is a leading member of the Cairns group of agricultural
exporters which pushes for free trade in agricultural products.
Unfortunately, Australia seems to consider that this freedom only
applies to its exporters, and not to those wishing to import perfectly
safe products into the Australian market.

Analysing potential lost trade is difficult, but some of the trade
effects of the Australian measures can be illustrated. For example,
trade statistics show that EU exports of fresh vegetables to Australia
in 2002 were 8,000 tonnes, whereas exports to Canada a comparable market
in size and wealth were over 300% greater at 35,000 tonnes. Total fruit
and vegetable exports to Australia (plus New Zealand) in 2001 were only
€16 mio of total EU fruit and vegetable exports of €3,369 mio.

The EU is not the sole country to have expressed concerns on the
Australian quarantine system. The Philippines have recently requested
the establishment of a WTO panel to rule on the legality of Australia\'s
quarantine regime for imports of fresh fruits and vegetables and the WTO
Dispute Settlement Body has decided today to establish this panel. In
1998 the WTO ruled that the Australian quarantine system for salmon
violated WTO rules following a complaint by Canada and the US.

For more information:

<http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/issues/bilateral/countries/australia/index_en.htm>