Stakes rise in bid to set coherent BSE strategy

Date: 08/01/1998

By Simon Taylor

THE European Commission is facing a major challenge in the next three months to establish a coherent strategy on BSE safeguards.

In December, Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler and Consumer Policy Commissioner Emma Bonino were forced to drop plans for EU-wide standards on which animal remains should be removed from carcasses and destroyed in order to prevent the spread of BSE after senior veterinary officials voted to delay the introduction of common rules for three months until 31 March this year.

Bowing to intense opposition from a group of member states led by Germany and Austria, the Commission agreed to carry out a study into the benefits of consumer health protection and weigh them against the cost to the taxpayer and industry of removing and destroying suspect materials. The study, drawing on all the Commission's services, is meant to be completed by the March 31 deadline.

But what was already a difficult task has now been further complicated by having to deal with the recommendations made by the EU's Scientific Steering Committee (SSC).

In December, the special committee of independent experts set up to advise the Commission on BSE risks warned that more animal remains than was previously thought could carry the infective agent BSE.

This would mean banning all bone-in cuts of meat from cattle, sheep and goats over 12 months of age across the EU together with other waste materials such as intestines and lungs.

The committee's findings threatened to unleash a new food safety scare as it appeared that the scientists were warning of a risk from meat cuts previously considered safe.

To accommodate the demands of six member states who want to be classified as 'BSE-free' and therefore exempt from rules which would impose additional costs on their farming and rendering industries, the Commission has set the SSC the unenviable task of drawing up rules for assessing the BSE risk depending on the country of origin, which animal it comes from, which part on the animal and its age.

This would mean in practice that the UK, with the highest number of cases of BSE, could be subject to the strictest rules on which animal remains would be destroyed (although officials say London has already gone as far as is necessary - a reference to the UK ban on bone-in beef cuts announced in December).

At the other end of the scale, countries with no cases of the endemic sheep disease scrapie, which is difficult to differentiate from BSE, would be subject to the lightest rules.

While in principle such a system sounds workable, Commission officials doubt that the committee could complete such a complex job in time for the SSC's next meeting on 22-23 January.

One senior veterinary Commission official described the challenge as near impossible, adding that the committee would not be ready by 31 March, let alone by the end of January.

Another major problem concerns the implications for the single market. "There could be barriers to internal trade because meat from different member states would have to meet different standards," warned a Commission source.

Hopes that BSE would not weigh as heavily on the Commission in 1998 as in recent years now appear optimistic, especially as UK calls for a partial lifting of the ban on its beef exports will be one of the major issues of the next 12 months.