WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3429/97 by Hiltrud BREYER to the Commission. Growth promoting hormones
30. 4. 98 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 134/125 3. Can negotiations still take place in the WTO? If so, on what subject? 4. When will the final ruling be given by the WTO? If the current WTO ruling were not changed and the EU continued to insist on the import ban on meat from 5. cattle treated with hormones, what would be the consequences? 6. Are penalty duties the only solution? 7. Who sets the level of the penalty duties or the compensation payments? Which countries will be granted such compensation payments and on what basis? (98/C 134/164) WRITTEN QUESTION E-3429/97 by Hiltrud Breyer (V) to the Commission (31 October 1997) Subject: Growth promoting hormones 1. What arguments did the EU use to appeal against the WTO ruling? 2. What is the task of the WTO Appellate Body (seven members)? Can only legal aspects of the panel report be the subject of appeals? What professional qualifications must these seven members have? 3. Can negotiations still take place in the WTO? If so, on what subject? 4. When will the WTO give its final ruling? 5. What would happen if the previous WTO ruling was not changed and the EU continued to insist on the ban on imports of meat from cattle treated with hormones? 6. Are penalty duties the only solution? 7. Who then sets the level of the penalty duties? Which states will demand them and with what right? Joint answer to Written Questions P-3248/97 and E-3429/97 given by Mr Santer on behalf of the Commission (25 November 1997) The Community has appealed from all the conclusions of the hormones panel report and most findings on 1. which they are based. In particular, it argued that the panel has made serious errors in interpreting: › Article 5:1-5:2 of the agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures of the World trade organisation (WTO) (SPS agreement), regarding the concepts of risk, risk assessment and the related question of appropriate level of sanitary protection; › Article 3:3 of the SPS agreement as regards the right of a WTO member when there is scientific justification to adopt a higher level of sanitary protection than that which can be achieved by basing the measures on the recommendations of the Codex Alimentarius commission; › Article 5:5 of the SPS agreement as imposing an obligation of consistency in the choice of levels of sanitary protection with substances which are not toxins or contaminants, and with regard to substances which are not the same and pose the same type of health risk to humans or animals as the growth hormones under dispute; › a number of important provisions of the SPS agreement without taking into proper account of the precautionary principle and against the panel’s decision placing exclusively on the Community rather than on the complainants the burden of proving that these hormones pose no risk;