Uncle Sam's Other War: Biotech vs. the European Union

The U.S. government is not very happy with the European Union these days. Washington is calling Europe's stand "inmoral", but Europe refuses to budge.

No, it's not the Iraq war. The issue is genetically modified (GM) foods.

Since 1998 the European Union has required the labelling of all GM foods. This has amounted to a de facto moratorium on U.S. imports of GM foods because Uncle Sam stubbornly refuses to label them. Small wonder, since consumer polls on both sides of the Atlantic show that most shoppers want GM foods labeled, precisely so they can avoid them.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick, recently called the European position on GM foods "Luddite" and "immoral". David Byrne, the European Union's health and consumer protection commissioner, called Zoellnick's remarks "unhelpful", "unfair" and "wrong".

The U.S. agricultural biotech industry is deadset against labelling. "labelling is a sham," said Mary Kay Thatcher, lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau. "It would be so expensive, it would shut down our exports."

Labelling "implies that there is something wrong with genetically modified good," said Elsa Murano, the U.S. Agriculture Department's undersecretary for food safety. "It would be another kind of trade barrier."

Years of struggle

Europe's opposition to eating GM foods did not just happen overnight. Rather, it was the product of years of activism and agitation on the part of activists from all walks of life.

Thoughout the 1990's, citizens all over Europe took matters in their own hands, "weeding" or "decontaminating" experimental GM plots with garden tools. Many of these civil disobedience acts were done in broad daylight, in front of reporters and flabbergasted policemen. They did not fit the profile of the lone nut or the crazed leftist. They were teachers, artists, farmers, carpenters, middle class housewives. Then came the "crop squats": groups "weeded" GM crops and occupied the plots for days and even weeks, turning them into demonstration organic farms and makeshift community centers.

These Gandhi-like revolutionary actions were remarkably similar to those carried out by the European peace movement in the 1980's against the deployment of American MX missiles. One can say that whereas nuclear weapons were a symbol of state power in the cold war, biotech is a symbol of corporate power in the post-cold war.

Activism worked. People made a difference. Europe today has no Yankee MX missiles or Yankee GM "frankenfoods". Now "Old Europe" has a de facto moratorium on GM foods, and it won't budge. Uncle Sam is furious.

WTO? Be my guest!

Washington has repeatedly threatened to bring a case against the European Union to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Unfriendly to social, environmental and public health considerations, the WTO has a dispute resolution mechanism whose workings have been repeatedly denounced by civil society groups as untransparent and undemocratic.

When a member country brings a case against another for erecting an "unfair trade barrier" in the WTO, the accused country is guilty until proven innocent. The accused country has to prove its innocence, the accuser has to prove nothing. The cases are heard behind closed doors by panels of unelected trade bureaucrats.

But not to worry, the European Union will win its case if it can prove that its rejection of GM foods is based on "sound science". "Whatever that means," the Europeans sigh sardonically. In the late 1990's, "sound science" meant that Europe had to import American beef tainted with growth hormones, even though its scientific authorities had determined that such hormones were an unacceptable health risk. The WTO had simply declared that the European ban on hormone-tainted beef was an unjustified trade barrier. So much for "sound science".