The organisation’s Dispute Settlement Body will launch a probe into the matter that has seen Brussels impose restrictions on US poultry imports treated with the four anti-bacterial chemicals chlorine dioxide, acidified sodium chloride, trisodium phosphate and peroxyacids.
The EU has rejected poultry carcasses treated with the pathogen reduction treatments (PRTs) since 1997 – despite approval by the US Food and Drug Administration for their use.
The US said it had turned to the WTO – the global trade arbitrator- after making a request to the EC in 2002 to lift the ban.
“After a delay of over six years, however, the EC has failed to approve any of the four PRTs, notwithstanding the fact that the EC’s own scientists have found that the importation and consumption of poultry processed with those four PRTs does not pose a risk to human health," said the US statement to the WTO.
The delegation said it regretted that “significant US engagement over many years” had not shifted EC policy.The US said it believed the EC action on the import and marketing of its PRT-treated poultry flouted provisions in the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement, the Agriculture Agreement, the GATT 1994 and the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement.
In a submission to the DSB panel, the EC said it regretted the US action but that it would defend its ban.
The WTO panel is due to deliver its ruling within nine months.
EFSA endorsement
EU opposition to US poultry flies in the face of a scientific opinion issued by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in 2008 that said the banned chemicals could be used to clean chicken carcasses.
But MEPs, speaking in the Parliament's Environment Committee, in 2008 said the chlorination of chicken intended for human consumption was not acceptable for the EU and would threaten the community's entire set of food production standards.
French Socialist MEP Anne Ferreira said that lifting the ban would be “totally absurd". She was supported by John Bowis (EPP-ED, UK), who said it would be "outrageous" and would degrade EU citizens to the status of "guinea pigs".