Brazil and EU, one more 'chicken battle' round soon

The Brazilian Association of Poultry Producers and Exporters – UBABEF, expects that in a month-time the Brazilian government opens a new panel at World Trade Organization - WTO against EU for a recent set of rules governing the importation of frozen chicken meat into the block.
UBABEF claims it is fully against the new definition for "fresh meat" adopted by the EU last May. As per the new definition, interpreted by UBABEF as protectionist, the chicken meat exported frozen into EU is allowed to be sold frozen, only, as well.
According to Mr. Francisco Turra, president of UBABEF, the problem is that from the 500 thousand tones of frozen chicken meat exported to EU annually, some 200 thousand are reprocessed and re-frozen by the local food processing industries.
Mr. Turra cannot still envision the impact f this measure on the shipments of the Brazilian chicken meat to the EU, but anticipated that it has contributed to reduce to 257.2 thousand tones, or 14.7% less by volume, the chicken meat exports to the block over the first seven months of 2010, when compared to same period of last year. "The European officials alleged the measure aims at protecting their consumers, but we have science-based documentation stating chicken meat re-freezing is not risky to health", said Mr. Turra.
Meanwhile, the total Brazilian chicken meat exports between January and July 2010 grew 2% by volume, to 2.165 million tones, and 16.6% by value, to US$ 3.756 billion, thanks to the increase of average price per ton in the international market.