Muddled threats solve nothing

Date: 25/04/1996

JUST what is the British government up to? Is it threatening retaliatory action against the rest of the EU if the world-wide ban on British beef exports is not lifted or isn't it?

The barrage of conflicting reports about what John Major's government might or might not do if its demands for an end to the ban are not met is symptomatic of the muddle which has characterised its approach to the BSE crisis from the start.

London's decision to inform the European Commission that it was about to reveal new scientific evidence of a possible risk to human health from mad cow disease just 30 minutes before going public with the news gave EU scientific experts no time to prepare for the panic which swept through the ranks of consumers across Europe in the wake of the announcement.

Since then, things have gone from bad to worse, culminating in this week's confusion over just how far the UK is prepared to go to get its way. Over the weekend, British newspapers were filled with reports that Major's government was considering retaliatory action against the rest of the Union if its demands for an end to the ban continued to fall on deaf ears.

On Monday morning, Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind appeared to substantiate those rumours when he declared that if the ban was not lifted “other options would have to be considered” and said it would have “wider implications for Britain's relations with the EU”.

But hours later, Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine insisted the UK was seeking “diplomatic solutions” to the crisis, admitting that to “take up the cudgels” against Europe would be counter-productive.

Heseltine hit the nail on the head, but that did not stop Rifkind from reiterating the following day that if the beef ban was continued indefinitely, that would be “bound to sour our wider relationship with our European partners”.

Threatening to hold the rest of Europe to ransom in such a blatant, if garbled, fashion is not the best way - to say the least - to prepare the ground for next week's meeting of EU farm ministers where the ban will be discussed again.

The UK government's mishandling of the crisis was largely responsible for the drastic action other member states felt obliged to take to halt the panic which struck Europe in the early days of the crisis. British ministers should have the good grace to accept that and concentrate their efforts on repairing the damage that has been done, rather than fanning the flames of an already bitter dispute.