"We regret that the United States has decided to ask for a panel to be established in this case. We feel that litigation is not the most appropriate way to deal with complex issues such as this one," the European Commission said in a statement reacting to the news on 8 October.
"However, since the US has chosen this path, we will defend our food safety legislation, which does not discriminate against imported products," the EU executive added.
The EU poultry ban has been in place since 1997, because US poultry producers use low-concentration chlorine to wash chickens before selling them – a practice not permitted in the EU. According to EU rules on hygiene and marketing of poultry, slaughterhouses can only use water or other approved substances to rinse meat products, in order to reduce their bacterial contamination.
The issue has been pinpointed as a top priority on the agenda of the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC), which was set up in April 2007 in a bid to reinvigorate EU-US economic relations. But so far, the two delegations have failed to resolve the chicken dispute in WTO consultations.
Last year, US Special Envoy to the EU Boyden Gray stressed that the ban was not scientifically justified and argued that some EU producers actually use the same process for exports (EurActiv 09/05/08).
Gray admitted that the loss of poultry exports to the EU is worth only "a couple of hundred million dollars," a mere fraction of the annual €620 billion transatlantic trade, but said the issue represents an "important test" in convincing sceptics that the TEC can work.
