US poultry industry raises concern over TTIP
Speaking at a public meeting chaired by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, National Chicken Council (NCC) senior vice-president Bill Roenigk said that while the US poultry industry had always been in favour of trade liberalisation, it was “much less enthusiastic” about the proposed TTIP.
Roenigk, who was delivering a testimony on behalf of the NCC, the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council (USAPEEC) and the National Turkey Federation (NTF), in response to a request for comments on the TTIP, said the US poultry industry would “seriously question” the need to support any bilateral trade agreement that did not address EU market access for US poultry.
He pointed out that the EU market was a potentially lucrative one for US poultry exporters, with nearly 400m consumers and annual poultry imports ranging from US$1.6bn to US$1.9bn. However, he added that while there was potential for the US to export more poultry to the EU than it currently did, that would only be achievable if the EU lifted sanitary and technical barriers to trade.
“As seen in the past, the European Union acts aggressively by overly-protecting the domestic poultry producing industry. Non-tariff barriers, especially technical barriers to trade, prevent import competition from US poultry,” he said.
Roenigk gave the example of the EU’s ban on poultry processed using hyper-chlorinated water as an anti-bacterial rinse, which is the standard practice of most poultry establishments in the US and considered safe by the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). He pointed out that the EU also refused to accept four alternative rinses proposed by the US.
“Ultimately, [the European Food Safety Authority] did advise the EU that the use of each of the four proposed alternative rinses was safe and efficacious, and it recommended that their uses be approved by the EU,” he said.
“When that advisory opinion was then presented to the member states in support of an implementing proposal of the European Commission, the proposal was voted down 27-0. The EU member states ignored the scientific facts and voted politically to continue to block imports.”
He added that the issue had still not been resolved, despite the US filing a dispute with the World Trade Organization.
In conclusion, Roenigk said the US poultry industry would only be able to give its full support to the TTIP if it addressed such trade barriers and resulted in better access to the EU market.
“Until there is a clear indication of how this agreement will result in real and meaningful market access, with the elimination of all non-tariff trade barriers to our products, we do not see how the TTIP is in the interests of our industry, our member companies, our workers, or the tens of thousands of family farmers who grow chickens in the US,” he said.
