European Union Considers Applying EU Standards On All Agricultural Imports
As the European Union (EU) considers applying their health and environmental standards to all imported agricultural and food products, the U.S. Meat Export Federation and senior director of export services, Cheyenne McEndaffer express their opposition of the idea.
“Under the World Trade Organization (WTO), applying [EU] standards or regulations to an importing country just for the sake of applying them without very clear, defined human or animal health risks is not compliant. We [the U.S.] have some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, but that's really dictated by voluntary and commercial practices at the farm level, as well as third party and regulatory standards at the slaughter plant level,” McEndaffer said.
Along with U.S. farmer disproval, concerns from the domestic European industry have also been voiced. European producers and exporters have faced decades of over regulation which increased the domestic industry to rely on common ag policy (CAP) for heavy subsidies, McEndaffer adds.
Already facing a widely different marketplace and potentially more regulations coming at them, the domestic European producers fear they won’t be able to compete with imports, McEndaffer said. In addition, producers might face retaliatory duties in the export market if many of the exporting countries are deemed WTO non-compliant.
