ISDS Case Map
food safety | SPS
Clause in negotiating mandate for Michel Barnier will create hurdle to US-UK deal.
The US is troubled by the EU’s non-tariff barriers that impede the use of modern agricultural tools and technologies such as biotechnology, veterinary drugs and pathogen reduction treatments.
New documents reveal that Canadian regulators have been using the agreement to weaken European food safety regulations.
A scaled-down deal could include European apples and pears, US seafood, and food safety standards.
A group of EU member states are unhappy about the lack of information from the European Commission on the trade talks with the US and have expressed their “nervousness” about what could be in the deal.
The changes joint committees are allowed to make to the CETA-text are in effect very far-reaching and at the same time binding, so they take up the role of legislator.
Concerns that a previous EU-US trade deal was anti-democratic and would lower food safety, labour and environmental standards resulted in in mass protests in Germany, Austria and France in 2015.
In Canada, farmers criticise the non-tariff barriers imposed by the EU and say the win-win deal that was promised is taking too long to materialise.
Britain is the United States’ closest ally but their long friendship may be sorely tested as the two countries try to forge a new trade agreement.
US chicken imports offend British sanitary sensibilities. Not just for the safety of people who ingest it, but mainly because the process compensates for less stringent health standards.
