agricultural biotechnology approval process in october 2001 the united states expressed concern regarding the lack of a functioning approval process in the european communities for agricultural biotechnology products. since 1998 a de facto moratorium on approval of biotechnology products had been in place. the united stated believed that under the sps agreement the european communities was obligated to have a functioning approval process and decisions on pending applications should not be delayed. the united states urged the european commission to restart the approval process as soon as possible. canada was concerned that the european communities was fundamentally altering the regulation of agriculture and food products to discriminate on the basis of how a product was produced rather than the products characteristics. canada also considered the proposed new ec regulations to be arbitrary as they required labelling for highly refined products such as oil that did not contain detectable dna or protein while not requiring similar controls on products that could present equal risk but were produced with other methods of development such as mutation breeding or mutagenesis. moreover the proposed regulations discriminated against products produced from genetically modified products but not against products produced with genetically modified organisms such as cheese and wine. canada argued that the proposed regulations were not commensurate with the risks and lacked scientific basis. furthermore the proposed regulations were fundamentally unworkable as demonstrated by the one per cent threshold for the adventitious presence of gmos. the european commission reaffirmed its interest and positive actions aimed at allowing the authorization procedures to continue. the recent meeting of the european environment council had started a very important discussion on proposals presented by the commission to restart the authorization procedure. in march 2002 the united states reported that no progress had been made on the ec approval system despite statements by various commission officials. the de facto moratorium had resulted in the loss of over 200 million per year in us agricultural exports. new information given by commission officials in february 2002 that the approval process would be restarted later in 2002 was welcome. frustration in us commercial and political circles continued to increase. while the united states welcomed the establishment of the european food safety authority this did not address the fundamental problem of individual ec member states holding the approval process hostage to political concerns with disregard for science and sound regulatory decision-making. canada supported the us comments and noted that the march 1998 ec moratorium represented a de facto ban on a wide range of products. as such it violated not just the sps agreement but also article xi of the gatt. argentina echoed the concerns expressed by the united states and canada. the european communities noted the absence of procedures at the international level for approval of these types of products. the european communities was following closely the work of the codex ad hoc taskforce on biotechnology. considerable efforts had been made to put together a consistent body of legislation to set u an authorization procedure for products resulting from biotechnology with the aim of giving the producer legal certainty and transparency. the newly established ec food safety authority was responsible for risk assessment and risk communication but further time was needed to complete work by the european parliament and the member states. in june 2002 the united states indicated their frustration with the situation and noted that it was considering what steps to pursue. canada observed that the ec moratorium essentially operated as a ban on imports of certain products for over four years without any scientific basis. the moratorium resulted in trade disruptions a