BRUSSELS - The European Commission said it was appealing against a World Trade Organisation (WTO) decision that a European Union ban on imports of hormone-treated meat ran contrary to global free trade rules.
A Commission official said the EU's executive thought that the WTO's interpretation of the rules was too strict and that the trade watchdog had ignored the views of leading scientists.
"The Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement (SPS) which was part of the Uruguay Round (of global trade talks)...was not correctly interpreted by the WTO panel," the official said.
"It states clearly in the SPS that WTO contracting parties themselves have the sovereign right to set appropriate levels of public health (protection)."
The Brussels-based Commission, the EU's executive, also thought the WTO had given a too narrow interpretation of the Codex Alimentarius, which sets minimum international food safety standards.
"(The Codex) was set up as a series of minimum standards and principles of food safety, not as a legislating body.
"If its principles become de facto the rule of law, then that will bring food safety down to the level of the lowest common denominator," the official said.
"We think that the panel's interpretation of that was so strict that quite possibly no contracting party of the WTO would be able to prove it was necessary to go beyond the Codex standards, as we did in our hormones (laws) of 1989."
The official said "some of the best scientists, if not the best scientists in the world" backed the EU's argument that there was risk involved in producing beef with the aid of synthetic growth hormones.
"Many of those scientists were entirely ignored," he said, adding that two of the five scientists who testified to the WTO panel agreed there was "sufficient evidence to show risk."
The European Consumers' Organisation (BEUC) on Wednesday attacked the WTO ruling as "fundamentally and scientifically flawed."
"This ruling will make it more difficult to maintain or promote high standards of consumer protection in all countries," BEUC director Jim Murray said in a statement.
The eight-year-old EU ban on imports of beef produced with the aid of synthetic growth hormones mainly affects imports from the United States, which won the WTO ruling in July.
According to the U.S. meat industry, the ban has cut sales to EU countries by between $100 and $250 million a year.
The Commission's appeal on behalf of the EU bloc and Washington's reply will be heard by the WTO appeals body on October 25.
A final WTO ruling is not expected before mid-December.
If the EU loses its appeal, the WTO disputes panel could order the bloc to pay compensation for lost trade or authorise U.S. trade retaliation equivalent to the same amount.
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