These standards, set by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, require that timber packaging must be either heat-treated or fumigated to kill off certain insects that burrow into wood and then emerge to wreak havoc in forests.

The two insects that the EU particularly wants to keep out are the Asian Longhorn Beetle, which flies long distances and eats into hardwood trees, and the Pine Wood Nematode, a tiny eelworm that causes trees to wilt, turn yellow and then brown.

But the new standards also include wood where the bark has been stripped off, a requirement that has angered the United States, the EU's top trading partner. This wood would also have to be labelled, all adding to producers' costs.

Washington wants a year's delay for de-barked packaging and claims that otherwise $80 billion worth of trade will be affected. The European Commission, the EU's executive, wants agriculture ministers meeting on Feb. 28 to approve this delay.

"These are the types of insects that will embed themselves and bore holes in the packaging material. They could cause widespread damage to forests," one EU diplomat said.