Sout-Korea bans imports of beef and other products from Member States due to Bovine Spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) related restrictions. Some Member States who have applied already several years ago for exports of beef to Korea, have not received any feed-back from Korea on the status of the progress of their applications. In view that Korea has resumed the import of other countries with the same OIE status, EC considers the measures by Korea unjustified, discriminatory and not respecting OIE status.
 

The issue has been raised with Korea in previous Joint Committee meetings, High Level Trade meetings, in the bilateral meetings in the WTO SPS Commiittees as well as EC has highlighted the issue in the general session of the WTO SPS Committee that WTO MEmbers should respect the international standrad setting bodies and not to be discriminatory.
 

The OIE has in May 2008 officially classified 25 EU countries as countries with negligible or controlled risk.