EU offers US bigger beef quota in hormone row

The European Commission is offering to double the preferential quota for beef imports from the United States as part of a deal to end a long-standing dispute over beef trade, EU sources familiar with the plan said. Last week, Washington said it would hold off on applying new retaliatory duties to EU products while it negotiates with Brussels on a solution to the trans-Atlantic row, sparked by an EU ban on U.S. imports of hormone-treated meat in 1988. But the sources told Reuters the plan by the EU executive -- which oversees trade and food safety policy for the 27-nation bloc -- did not include lifting the embargo which Brussels says is based on scientific advice and is not protectionist. "The proposal is aimed at giving a bigger incentive to U.S. beef farmers to export normal-treated beef in return for the U.S. ending its sanctions," one EU source with knowledge of the proposal said. "The ban on hormone-treated beef stays. The Commission was quite clear on that," another EU source said, adding the proposal was discussed at a regular closed-door meeting of EU trade officials on Friday...Reuters