Secret FTA deal could lower meat safety standards
The Hankyoreh, Seoul
Secret FTA deal could lower meat safety standards
Last-minute agreement may hand quarantine procedures over to U.S.
31 May 2007
In a secret deal struck just before the two countries signed a free trade agreement (FTA) in early April, the South Korean government promised the U.S. it would offer a "de facto" relinquishment of its authority to conduct hygiene and quarantine tests on U.S imported beef.
Kang Ki-kab, a lawmaker of the minor opposition Democratic Labor Party, on May 30 disclosed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Seoul and Washington. The behind-closed-doors agreement was made on March 28, five days before the FTA was clinched.
Regarding U.S. demands that its quarantine process on domestic pork, poultry, and beef farms be regarded as the same with South Korea’s, Seoul in the MOU agreed that the U.S. quarantine system on pork and poultry could replace that of Korea’s as an equivalent. However, it did not stipulate that the opposite could hold true; namely, Korea’s quarantine system could substitute for that of the U.S. in a given situation. The Korean government in the MOU continued by saying that it would review the same U.S. request on beef quarantine after the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE)’s announcement of the assessment results on the risk level of the U.S. beef.
Last week, the OIE deemed the U.S. a ’risk controlled country’ for mad cow disease, a decision that could force South Korea to deliver on its promise. Only 36 slaughterhouses in the U.S. have been inspected and approved as safe by the South Korean government, but if the secret MOU is put into practice, the other 800-odd U.S. slaughterhouses that have not yet been inspected by Korean quarantine officials would be given the go-ahead to begin importing to South Korea.
In addition, under the MOU, South Korea agreed with the U.S. requests that it review the quarantine principal of "localization" in poultry imports, meaning that U.S. poultry could still be imported to South Korea even after a bird flu outbreak there, as long as the imported meat was from a different region.
To facilitate the process of the review on whether Seoul will accept the U.S. demands for "localization" to be applied to poultry import quarantine regulations, the government said in the MOU that it would provide a related questionnaire to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in April this year.
A civic group opposing the recently inked Seoul-Washington FTA raised health concerns surrounding the secret agreement, specifically the possible handing-over of the hygiene and quarantine processes to the U.S.
"The U.S. issues safety approvals recklessly, even to unqualified slaughterhouses," the civic group said. "It is also risky to apply the localization standard to U.S. poultry, even when there is no way to contain in a certain area birds that carry the virus.
