i.want.world

How do you like your chicken: with or without chemicals?

Roughly speaking, that's the issue in the EC - Measures Affecting Poultry Meat WTO dispute (DS389), for which the U.S. recently announced it will request a panel. The panel request describes the issue as follows:

The EC prohibits the import of poultry treated with any substance other than water unless that substance has been approved by the EC. The EC has not approved any other substance. Consequently, the EC prohibits the import of poultry that has been processed with chemical treatments ("pathogen reduction treatments" or "PRTs") designed to reduce the amount of microbes on the meat, effectively prohibiting the shipment of virtually all US poultry to the EC. The EC has not published or otherwise made available the process for approving a substance. The EC also maintains a measure regarding the marketing standards for poultry meat, which defines "poultrymeat" as only "poultrymeat suitable for human consumption, which has not undergone any treatment other than cold treatment."

In 2002, the United States requested the European Commission ("Commission") to approve the use of four PRTs in the production of poultry intended for export to the EC: acidified sodium chlorite, trisodium phosphate, peroxyacids, and chlorine dioxide. However, after more than six years, including unexplained delays, the EC has not approved any of these four PRTs and instead has rejected the approval of their use.

The EC's failure to approve is despite the fact that various EC agencies have issued scientific reports regarding a number of different aspects related to the processing of poultry with these four PRTs. Those reports did not find any scientific basis for banning the use of these PRTs. To the contrary, the conclusion of these reports is that the importation and consumption of poultry processed with these four PRTs does not pose a risk to human health.

In a nutshell, the trade issue is the following: U.S. producers use chemicals to clean their poultry, but the EC does not allow the sale of poultry cleaned this way, so U.S. producers can't sell their poultry in the EC.

For SPS disputes, I'm always interested to see how the substance of the dispute is presented, in particular whether the claim is mainly about "discrimination," "necessity," or "science," or some combination of these three.  Here, the parties seem to want to take different approaches to characterizing the dispute. From the USTR press release:

"The U.S. poultry subject to the EU ban is safe. There is no scientific evidence that the use of pathogen reduction treatments pose any health risk to consumers," said Nefeterius McPherson, a USTR spokeswoman.

By contrast, from the DG Trade press release: "we will defend our food safety legislation, which does not discriminate against imported products."  So, in the battle of the press releases, it's about science for the U.S., whereas for the EC it's about discrimination (or lack thereof).

Of course, it's the panel request that really matters in this regard.  Here are some of the key provisions the U.S. cited in the request and what they are mainly about:

SPS Agreement Article 2.2 - Necessity and Science

SPS Agreement Articles 5.1 and 5.2 - Science 

GATT Article III:4 - Non-Discrimination

GATT Article XI:1 -  Quotas and other Import Restrictions.  (This one could be interesting if it explores the intersection between import restrictions and domestic regulations, given that the measure bans all such poultry, not just imports)

TBT Agreement Article 2.1 - Non-Discrimination

It's interesting that the U.S. press release does not mention discrimination, but the panel request cites some discrimination provisions.  I'm not sure what to make of that.  I would have thought it would be a good idea to sell the case as being about discrimination, at least in part.

It's also worth noting that in the consultations request, the U.S. left out explicit references to the non-discrimination provisions.  There, the U.S. cited SPS Agreement Articles 2.2, 5, 8 and Annex C(1); GATT Articles X:1 and XI:1; Agriculture Agreement Article 4.2; and TBT Agreement Article 2 (without mentioning which sub-provisions).

The substance of the discrimination claims will also be worth following.  From what I can tell, this will be a claim of de facto discrimination, as the measures apply to all products regardless of origin.  It is these kinds of claims that often give the most insights into the scope of the non-discrimination standard.

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ridiculous 'paragraph' of the month

While reading a study commissioned by the EU with the objective of determining "to what extent the European standardization system in its present form can guarantee appropriate access to all interested parties" along with accompanying recommendations for "avenues of exploration", I came across this paragraph:

"The participation of SMEs and societal stakeholders can be hampered by a lack of resources and technical expertise. This can, in turn, affect the consensus reaching process and therefore cause delays in standards development. The Commission is therefore providing financial support to European organizations and associations representing SMEs and societal stakeholder interests."

The Commission pays these guys in order to gain 'consensus' and the 'participation' of stakeholders - so called 'private organizations' - during the standardization process. I really would like to know, how does that work? 

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new EU law on organic agriculture is a step backwards for France

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vienna's heurigen

Vienna is the only metropolis in the world that cultivates wine within its city limits. Where best to enjoy the local harvest than at heurige, local wine taverns? What used to be a shack in a vineyard or a few tables by a wine press have now evolved into bobo wine estates with organic barbecues and fussy designer wine cellars serving nouvelle cuisine viennoise.

These days, Viennese heurige are shaking off their rustic image as tourist traps in disguise and venues for day-tripping retirees…

Good traditional heurige still exist though they are increasingly rare, while many deliberately court younger cosmopolitan Viennese who are no longer content with sour Grüne Veltliner wine and stale dark bread. Two driving forces behind the new popularity of the heurige culture are the next generation of ambitious young vintners and the renaissance of the beisl (Viennese restaurant) cuisine. Witness, for example, the revival of the Grinzing area, for years the ending point of tourist bus fleets, now boasting several gourmet restaurants as well as organic wine cultivation.

One of the greatest charms of heurige is the al fresco setting, be it on a green meadow overlooking the city or in a grapevine-trellised courtyard shaded by ancient chestnut trees. As such, summer is the perfect time to visit heurige, when balmy evenings under the stars could only be complemented by bottomless carafes of good wine.

The ultimate Viennese chill-out, if you will.

More

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it's christmas in vienna

                           

Click here to download:

christmas_in_vienna.zip (12576 KB)

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living life without money

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euro startups are still pitching

via TechCrunch by Mike Butcher on 10/27/08

The European startup scene appears to be relatively unfazed by the downturn so far. But then, they are, even now, still getting used to the mere idea of pitching their idea. O’Reilly’s Web 2 Expo Europe event in Berlin last week featured a bunch of startups all trying to get some exposure to a swathe of European VCs at a “Pitchcamp”. But luckily it featured a crop of some of Europe’s most interesting companies to date…

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racism in europe

European political leaders should do more to counter the appeal of the far right

THERE was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among liberal commentators after Austria’s election on September 28th. Two far-right parties, led by Heinz-Christian Strache (pictured left) and Jorg Haider (on his right), took 29% of the vote between them. Even more disheartening, a third of the country’s new young voters (the voting age has just been lowered to 16) backed them.

Austria has form. In 1999 Mr Haider’s far-right party won 27% of the vote and entered a coalition government that was briefly boycotted by its European partners. This time, not least because the two far-right leaders hate each other, neither is likely to be invited into the government. But although flavours of the far right vary widely, Austria is by no means alone. The Swiss People’s Party of Christoph Blocher is the biggest party in Switzerland. Belgium’s Vlaams Belang party remains strong in Flanders. Denmark’s government depends on the backing of Pia Kjaersgaard’s anti-immigrant People’s Party. In Italy the Northern League, part of the ruling right-wing coalition, is explicitly xenophobic.

All of this is obviously to be deplored. The harder question is what to do about it. The Austrians argued that by including Mr Haider in government they would defang him, a trick the Swiss later tried to play on Mr Blocher. For a time it even seemed to work (though the European boycott merely annoyed Austria’s voters). But the far right has since won back even more electoral ground. Elaborate steps to exclude the far right do not seem to have been any more effective. The Vlaams Belang has benefited from the other parties’ decision to keep it out of government. In Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, extreme parties of both left and right tend to gain votes when the big parties form grand coalitions in the centre.

Tackling the roots

The far right has prospered most when mainstream political parties have belittled or ignored the concerns of ordinary people about such issues as immigration. It does less well when political leaders accept its existence and try to respond to its supporters’ concerns. That points, for example, to reassuring voters that immigration is under control, not just to explaining why it can be beneficial. This is how the Conservative Party has neutralised the far-right vote in Britain. In the 2007 French presidential election Nicolas Sarkozy did the same to the National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen, who got into the run-off in 2002. Mr Sarkozy ate into Mr Le Pen’s support partly by talking tough on immigration and crime.

This, however, must not include pandering to voters’ racism and xenophobia. No respectable party should run on an anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim platform. Instead, political leaders should speak out loudly against all forms of prejudice. They should try to ensure that criticism of Israel does not blur into hostility to Jewry, for instance; and, equally, they should do their best to ensure that legitimate fears of Islamist terrorism do not translate into a prejudice against Muslims. Austria’s politicians could make a useful start by dropping their strident opposition to the notion that Turkey, a mainly Muslim country, might ever join the European Union. Promoting the belief that the EU ought to be an exclusive Christian club is likely to promote racism, not quell it.

Related articles:

• Haider, Austria's notorious far-right politician, is killed in road crash
• Far-Right, Anti-Immigrant Parties Make Gains in Austrian Elections

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german and austrian women

Of all the German females, the ladies of Saxony are the most amiable. Their persons are so superiorly charming and preferable in whatever can recommend them to be notice of mankind, that the German youth often visit Saxony in quest of companions for life. Exclusive of their beauty and comeliness of appearance, they are brought up in a knowledge of all those arts, both useful and ornamental, which are so brilliant an addition to their native attractions. But what chiefly enhances their value, and gives it reality and duration, is a sweetness of temper and festivity of disposition, that never fail to endear them on a very slight acquaintance. To crown all, they are generally patterns of conjugal tenderness and fidelity.

As they are commonly careful to improve their minds by reading and instructive conversation, they have no small share of facetiousness and ingenuity. From their innate liveliness, they are extremely addicted to all the gay kind  of amusements. They excel in the allurements of dress and decoration, and are in general skilful in music.

The character, however, of the women in most other parts of Germany, particularly of the Austrian, is very different from this. Notwithstanding the advantages of size and make, their looks and features, though not unsightly, betray a vacancy of that life and spirit, without which beauty is uninteresting, and, like a mere picture, becomes utterly void of that indication of sensibility, which alone can awaken a delicacy of feeling.

As their education is conducted by the rules of the grossest superstition, and they are taught little else than set forms of devotion, they arrive to the years of maturity uninstructed in the use of reason, and usually continue profoundly ignorant the remainder of their days, which are spent, or rather loitered away, in apathy and indolence.

The principal happiness of the Austrian ladies of fashion consists in ruminating on the dignity of their birth and families, the antiquity of their race, the rank they hold, the respect attached to it, and the prerogatives they enjoy over the inferior classes, whom they treat with the utmost superciliousness, and hold in the most unreasonable contempt. In the mean time, their domestic affairs are condemned to the most unaccountable neglect. They dwell at home, careless of what passes there; and suffer disorder and confusion to prevail, without feeling the least uneasiness. Great frequenters of churches, their piety consists in the strictest conformity to all the externals of religion. They profess the most boundless belief in all the silly legends with which their treatises of devotion are filled; and these are the only books they ever read. The coldness of their constitution occasions a species of regulated gallantry, which is rather the effect of an opinion that it is an appendage of high life, than the result of their natural inclination.

It must, at the same time be allowed, that the Austrian women are endowed with a great fund of sincerity and candor; and, though too much on the reserve, and prone to keep at an unnecessary distance, are yet capable of the truest attachment, and always warm and zealous in the cause of those whom they have admitted to their friendship.

Though the Germans are rather a dull and phlegmatic people, and not greatly enslaved by the warmer passions, yet at the court of Vienna they are much given to intrigue: and an amour is so far from being scandalous, that a woman gains credit by the rank of her gallant, and is reckoned silly and unfashionable if she scrupulously adheres to the virtue of chastity. But such customs are more the customs of courts, than of places less exposed to temptation, and consequently less dissolute; and we are well assured that in Germany there are many women who do honor to humanity, not by chastity only, but also by a variety of other virtues.

The ladies at the principal courts, differ not much in their dress from the French and English. They are not, however, so excessively fond of paint as the former. At some courts, they appear in rich furs: and all of them are loaded with jewels, if they can obtain them. The female part of the burgher’s families, in many of the German towns, dress in a very different manner, and some of them inconceivably fantastic, as may be seen in many prints published in books of travels. But, in this respect, they are gradually reforming, and many of them make quite a different appearance in their dress from what they did thirty or forty years ago.

The inhabitants of Vienna lived luxuriously, a great part of their time being spent in feasting and carousing. In winter, when the different branches of the Danube are frozen over, and the ground covered with snow, the ladies take their recreation in sledges of different shapes, such as griffins, tigers, swans, scallop-shells, etc. Here the lady sits, dressed in velvet lined with rich furs, and adorned with laces and jewels, having on her head a velvet cap. The sledge is drawn by one horse, stag or other creature, set off with plumes of feathers, ribbons and bells. As this diversion is taken chiefly in the night time, servants ride before the sledge with torches; and a gentleman, standing on the sledge behind, guides the horse.

Related articles:

• A Maverick's Guide to The New Vienna
• Follow my lieder

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well we didn't make this time...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Feedback Seedcamp
Date: Tue, Aug 31, 2008 at 12:16 AM
Subject: Your Seedcamp 2008 application
To: Feedback Seedcamp


Thank you so much for taking the time to apply to Seedcamp 2008. We really appreciate the time, energy and initiative you have shown in putting together your submission and developing your idea.

Unfortunately, your team hasn't made the shortlist this year. The competition has been extremely tough and we've had over 100 entries more than last year from around the world. Our panel of judges from some of Europe's top VC funds put a lot of thought into the process and did not find making their selections easy.

We want to help support you by creating a more vibrant entrepreneurial community to help you develop your ideas and building better businesses. We also really do want to stay in touch with you - so there are a few things which you can immediately take advantage of:

* please stay active on the Seedcamp forums
(http://forum.seedcamp.com) and blog (http://blog.seedcamp.com)
* join Seedcamp's Facebook
(http://facebook.com/group.php?gid=2454599453) and YouNoodle groups
(http://younoodle.com/groups/seedcamp)
* please go along to and help us develop your local Opencoffee Club -
you can get great support locally (http://www.opencoffeeclub.org/)

If you have any suggestions on our online application process, how we can get the word out better, the timing of our process, or anything else let us know. Your feedback helps us support you in the next year to develop an even better application for Seedcamp 2009.

Thanks again and best of luck going forward,
Seedcamp Team

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