U.S.-EU Poultry Dispute on the Use of Pathogen Reduction Treatments (PRTs)

The Congressional Research Service, a department of the Library of Congress, conducts research and analysis for Congress on a broad range of national and international policy issues. Some of the CRS work is carried out specifically for individual members of Congress or their staff and is confidential. However, there is also much CRS compiled material which is considered public but is not formally published on the CRS website.

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Federation of American Scientists (FAS)

In some cases hyperlinks allows you to access all versions of a report, including the latest. Note that many reports are periodically updated.In January 2009, the United States escalated a long-running dispute with the European Union (EU) over its refusal to accept imports of U.S. poultry treated with certain pathogen reduction treatments (PRTs) by requesting World Trade Organization (WTO) consultations with the EU on the matter, a prerequisite first step toward the establishment of a formal WTO dispute settlement panel. This dispute dates back to 1997, when the EU first banned the use of PRTs on poultry, effectively shutting out virtually all imports from the United States since then.

PRTs are antimicrobial rinses—including chlorine dioxide, acidified sodium chlorite, trisodium phosphate, and peroxyacids, among others—that have been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for use in poultry processing to reduce the amount of microbes on meat. Meat and poultry products processed with PRTs were judged safe by the United States and also by European food safety authorities. Nevertheless, the EU prohibited the use of PRTs and the importation of poultry treated with these substances. The EU generally opposed such chemical interventions and believed that stronger sanitary practices during production and processing were more appropriate for pathogen control than what it viewed as U.S. over reliance on PRTs.

As PRTs were widely used in U.S. poultry processing, the EU’s ban on their use effectively prohibited U.S. poultry meat from entering EU countries. Although the United States was the second largest global exporter of poultry (broiler and turkey) meat, virtually no U.S. poultry meat was being purchased for consumption in the EU, according to USDA. As the EU was a major importer of poultry products, some estimated that the combined effects of the ban and the growth of the EU market may have led to $200 million to $300 million in lost U.S. sales annually.

As of 2017, the United States and EU had not been able to reach agreement on a number of issues related to veterinary equivalency, and the EU continued to maintain measures that prohibited the use of any substance other than water to remove contamination from animal products unless the substance had been approved by the European Commission, which had rejected USDA’s applications to the EU’s health agencies requesting approval to use certain poultry treatments. The United States was seeking approval of four PRTs: peroxyacetic acid, chlorine dioxide, acidified sodium chlorite, and trisodium.

The U.S. poultry industry and the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) remained actively engaged in this case. This issue also continued to be raised in trade negotiations between the United States and EU to establish a free trade area as part of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). The U.S. poultry industry indicated that it was unlikely to support a T-TIP agreement that did not provide for better access to the EU of U.S. poultry products.

EveryCRSReport.com https://www.everycrsreport.com/

FAS: Congressional Research Service [CRS] Reports https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/index.html

ESO: Background information: Poultry import dispute endangers trade forum http://www.europeansources.info/record/poultry-import-dispute-endangers-trade-forum/

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