Legal dilemma over Länder’s British beef ban

Date: 06/06/1996

GERMANY's apparent determination to continue to bar all beef products from the UK looks set to present the Commission with a new dilemma.

At the moment, the Commission insists it remains a hypothetical situation, at least until the ban on exports of gelatine, tallow and semen is lifted on Sunday (9 June).

But officials stress that if Germany were to continue with a unilateral ban, it would be contrary to EU law and legal action would be the inevitable long-term result.

“Imagine us having to take the German government to court for protecting the health of its consumers,” said one official with evident concern.

The current German ban on British beef products lasts until the end of September and stems from legislation forced through by the Social Democrat-controlled Bundesrat (upper house) in March.

For the Germans, the stakes arising from a European Court case could be particularly high. Officials point out that under German constitutional law, Bonn has no power to coerce the Länder into lifting the ban.

All this could lead to a ground-breaking dispute in Germany's constitutional court in Karlsruhe over the power of the German government to sign up to EU law without consulting the Länder.

Besides possible court action against Germany, four separate cases relating to the BSE crisis have been submitted to the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.

Both the UK government and the National Farmers Union are looking for an injunction against the ban, with hearings possible by the third week of June, in which case interim rulings would be ready before the end of July.

Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind appears to be pinning his hopes - rather optimistically - on member states abdicating responsibility for deciding whether the UK has met the requirements for the next stage of the ban to be lifted to the Commission.

Commission officials stress that the procedures to be adopted for the UK's hoped-for “step-by-step” lifting of the ban will depend not just on the resolution of the political dispute, but also on the amount of detail in its framework document.

“Commissioner Fischler made it clear he wouldn't subscribe to anything without consulting the vets. But if all the British wanted was a vague political framework which means nothing but allows them to say they have a framework, that needn't involve all the different stages,” said an official.

The continuing crisis is putting increasingly large question marks over the ability of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund's budget to cover the costs of compensating beef farmers and paying for culling programmes and intervention purchases.

Responding to requests from a number of member states for the 650 million ecu aid package to be raised, Fischler stressed the budget was close to its 1996 ceiling.

Conscious of the need to put more money into the beef market, Budgets Commissioner Erkki Liikanen yesterday (5 June) presented his colleagues with a “Supplementary and Amending Budget”.

This reapportions 1.3 billion ecu of money unused in other farm sectors - especially dairy, cereals and Mediterranean products - to cover expenses already recorded in the beef sector. An additional 200 million is put aside as a reserve to cover any future costs.

But the final bill for this year is far from clear, with no clarity over the UK's selective slaughter policy or how much beef will be bought into intervention.