EU Requests WTO Compliance Panel in Spat on US CV Duties on Spanish Olives
The EU July 14 asked the World Trade Organization to assess whether the U.S. has complied with a dispute panel report finding that U.S. countervailing duties on Spanish olives violated WTO commitments. The EU said the U.S. "has so far failed to comply with" the panel ruling and that the duties, which could shove Spanish olive exporters out of the American market, remain in place.
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"The main objective of the compliance proceedings launched today is to push the US to comply with the WTO Panel’s ruling and thus to remove their unwarranted duties on Spanish ripe olives," the European Commission Directorate-General for Trade said. A WTO compliance panel would have 90 days to "issue a final award." Should the U.S. appeal an unfavorable award "into the void," the EU said, the bloc "could consider retaliatory measures," an option it recently discussed as a way to circumvent the defunct Appellate Body (see 2307100012).
The EU started the compliance proceedings in May (see 2304280029). The dispute panel in 2021 said the U.S. violated WTO rules during the investigations leading up to the CVD order (see 2111190028). The panel said the U.S. erred when finding that subsidies given to Spanish raw olive growers under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy were specific to the olive growers.