Most EU states opposed to ending ban on US poultry: official

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

BRUSSELS (AFP) — The vast majority of EU states are opposed to lifting an import ban on US poultry, an official said Monday, less than a week after the European Commission said it would propose scrapping the measure.

Their opposition flies in the face of a drive by EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen to introduce a proposal to lift the ban, in place since 1997 over health fears about a chlorine washing process common in the United States.

The issue has been a source of contention in EU-US trade relations and the German commissioner has led efforts to get it lifted, stirring tensions within member states and the European Commission.

Agriculture ministers from 21 of the European Union's 27 countries voiced opposition at a meeting in Brussels to the idea...