Brussels: The European Union yesterday warned of a "most unfortunate" souring of trade relations with the US after Washington relaunched a fight against an EU ban on imports of hormone-treated American beef.
The US on Thursday reignited the long-standing feud, taking Brussels by surprise with just four weeks left in the Obama Administration.
Washington said it would revert back to a World Trade Organization decision in 1998 that ruled that an EU ban on imports of US beef violated WTO obligations and was not based on scientific evidence.
"The EU has fully complied, both in the letter and in spirit," with a 2009 compromise deal, the commission, which handles bloc trade policy, said in a statement.
"The termination of this agreement and the possible application of duties on EU exports to the US would certainly constitute a most unfortunate step backward in the strong EU-US trade relations," the statement added.
But the EU said it "will continue implementing" the 2009 truce, which allowed Europe to import non-hormone treated American beef, in hopes that the feud would die down. The EU "stands ready to listen to any concern that the US Administration may wish to raise," the statement said.
The salvo came weeks after the collapse of ambitious trade talks between the two sides following the victory of Donald Trump, who dislikes big trade accords.
European officials had hoped the dispute would be dropped once and for all via the trade deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, that was under negotiation since 2013. But with those talks now moribund, Washington said that the US is reinstating its trade action.
