UK’s tactics laid bare

Date: 26/09/1996

ONCE again, the UK government is in the dock over its handling of the BSE crisis - and once again, it has only itself to blame.

Not surprisingly, British Prime Minister John Major's decision to suspend the cattle cull agreed as part of the framework accord reached at the June summit in Florence has sparked bitter recriminations from the European Commission and other member states.

While insisting that the cull has been abandoned because of new scientific evidence that the disease will die out naturally by the year 2001 without it, ministers also admit that there was very little chance that the slaughter programme would have been approved by the UK parliament anyway.

But that has been the case ever since the Florence summit and, in truth, preparations for the cull have been half-hearted at best in the three months since the deal was struck.

Other EU governments could be forgiven for concluding that the British never really intended to stick to the agreement so painstakingly stitched together, and simply seized on the first scientific report they could hold up as justification for abandoning it.

After all, the accord reached in Florence did not commit the EU to any timetable for lifting the ban on British beef exports, and was seen by many at the time as little more than a political fig-leaf to allow Major to abandon his highly damaging policy of non-cooperation without returning home empty-handed.

Now the UK says it has taken the decision to abandon the cull partly because there are few signs that the rest of Europe is prepared to begin easing the ban as quickly as it had hoped. That, however, cannot be used as justification for suspending the programme - the deal the UK signed up to in Florence was offered on the express condition that no deadlines were set.

UK government ministers continue to insist they have not broken the terms of the Florence agreement, while everyone else insists that they have done just that.

If it was serious about persuading its partners to reconsider the slaughter programme, instead of just scrapping it, the UK should at least have followed the steps laid down in the framework for amending it.

At no point has the UK brought forward a “working document” setting out its case for a reduced cull as required under the deal. And while telling the public back home that they were fighting hard to get the ban on exports from herds certified as BSE-free lifted, ministers have never submitted a formal request for this to be done.

Once again, it seems, the UK is prepared to sacrifice its relationship with its EU partners on the altar of domestic political expediency.