Trade suits against EU restrictions on biotech food imports and heavy European subsidies for sugar farmers restarted tough disputes today just two weeks before talks on freeing up global commerce.
At the same time, negotiators in Geneva were having problems finalising a deal to allow poor countries to waive patent rules and get cheaper access to vital drugs for diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, another key part of the trade talks.
The assault on two of the most sensitive areas of European Union agriculture policy came as the World Trade Organization (WTO) gears up for talks in Cancun, Mexico, that could decide if the Doha Round of trade talks ends on time in 2004.
Officials in Geneva said the WTO had begun an inquiry into the EU's refusal to accept most genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which Washington says violates trading rules.
At the same time, officials said the WTO had launched a probe into complaints by Brazil, Australia and Thailand that the EU was illegally subsidising its sugar industry.
The three accuse the EU, the world's largest sugar exporter, of distorting world prices with its multi-billion dollar subsidy system. Europe rejects the complaint.