BRUSSELS - The European Union will make a last-bid effort on Tuesday to overturn a World Trade Organisation (WTO) decision that its ban on imports of hormone-treated meat violates free trade rules.
The European Commission, the EU executive, will try to convince a WTO appellate body in Geneva that the EU had the right to impose the ban to protect public health.
"The interpretation that was accepted by the members of the (WTO) panel calls into question the fundamental right of governments to choose the level of protection of the health of their citizens," a Commission source said on Monday.
The eight-year-old EU ban on imports of beef produced with the aid of synthetic growth hormones mainly affects exports from the United States, which won the ruling by a WTO dispute panel in July. Washington was backed by Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway.
The U.S. meat industry says the ban has cut sales to EU countries by between $100 and $250 million a year.
However, the EU -- hit with a separate crisis over "mad cow disease" -- would find it politically impossible to relax the ban, which also applies to home-grown beef.
All 15 EU countries support the appeal.
The Commission argues that it has complied with world trade rules, noting that two out of five scientists that were consulted by the WTO panel supported the EU's position that growth hormones increased the risk of cancer.
"The (EU) must establish that the measures have a scientific basis, not a majority scientific basis," one source said.
The Commission expects a final ruling on the appeal before December, he added. If Brussels loses, but still declines to act, the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) could request the EU to pay compensation to the United States for the amount of trade it says it has lost.
If the EU refused, the DSB -- on which all the WTO's currently 131 members have a voice -- could authorise U.S. trade retaliation to the same amount.
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