Proposal on sheep to win approval despite furore

Date: 25/07/1996

By Michael Mann

NEW proposals to remove certain sheep tissues from the human and animal food chain look set to be agreed in principle by EU vets next week, despite anger in some member states over Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler's handling of the issue.

Most EU governments have expressed support for the Commission's attempts to act on the latest scientific evidence, but there was widespread amazement at the way Fischler chose to announce the news that - under laboratory conditions at least - 'mad cow' disease BSE could be transmitted to sheep.

Fears that the European sheep market would be the next victim of the BSE crisis overshadowed Irish Farm Minister Ivan Yates' success in shepherding through a deal on a range of outstanding farm policy issues.

Amid the furore over the latest BSE scare, both Yates and Fischler were at pains to stress that proposals to remove sheep's brains, spinal cords and possibly spleens from the food chain were merely precautionary and there was no evidence of a risk to human health.

But Spanish Farm Minister Loyola de Palacio immediately accused the Commission of causing “serious and unjustified alarm”.

The timing of the announcement was regarded as particularly unwise, coming at a time when other news stories are in short supply and consumer confidence in the meat industry is at an all-time low.

Officials at the UK's Meat and Livestock Commission said it was too early to gauge definitively whether the announcement would hit sales of sheep meat. But they admitted that sales at auction just 24 hours after the latest scare hit the headlines were down 12&percent; on the same day the previous week, with prices 15&percent; lower.

It is not clear exactly what form Fischler's proposals will take. But the Commission is expected to suggest the removal of suspect tissues from all ruminants (sheep, goats, deer and cattle) more than six months old.

While most attention focused on the sheep issue, ministers quietly got down to the business of agreeing a package of measures left over from last month. These included next season's set-aside rate, the reform of the EU's 1.6-billion-ecu fruit and vegetable sector, and the institutional prices for 1996-97.

After the best part of a day of bilateral discussions, Ireland was able to tie up a wide-ranging deal by 2.30am yesterday (24 July).

With the beef crisis threatening to break agricultural spending ceilings, Commission officials expressed satisfaction that the agreement would have a virtually neutral impact on the budget.

The Commission maintained most of the minor changes it had planned to farm prices, and also persuaded ministers to accept its proposal to halve cereals set-aside to 5&percent;.