BRITAIN asked the European Court of Justice yesterday to over turn a worldwide ban on beef exports imposed over fears of "mad cow" disease, officials in Luxembourg and in London said.
The British ministry of agriculture said papers both challenging the embargo as a whole and requesting an urgent interim ruling to suspend the ban "in whole or in part" had been filed with the court in Luxembourg. This follows British Prime Minister John Major's announcement on Tuesday of his intention to challenge the legal basis for the ban.
The ministry said Britain was continuing to seek "to negotiate a solution, but there has been insufficient progress. For this reason, the government is seeking the assistance of the court."
Court officials said a hearing on the petition could be arranged within two to four weeks on the request for an interim ruling, but that it could take at least 10 months for a verdict on the full case. A court spokesman said two other legal actions had also been lodged. One is from Britain's National Farmers' Union asking for the ban to be scrapped and for an interim lifting of the embargo, and the other from the High Court in London asking the Luxembourg court to rule on the ban.
Meanwhile British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, in an interview in today's Le Figaro, said Britain was "not joking" about disrupting EU business. London, he said, wanted to send a clear signal to its EU partners that Britain would not just politely do everything it was told as if nothing was wrong.
Britain was committed to eradicating the disease, Mr Rifkind added.