EU agriculture ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday will face a decision that could cost Europe's food industry more than £1 billion and leave the EU and national governments facing massive compensation bills.
The EU Food Safety Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, knows his call yesterday for a total ban on feeding meat-and-bone meal (MBM) to farm animals and compulsory BSE tests for all cattle over 30 months will not be popular among farmers, but he claims such drastic steps are the only way to restore consumer confidence.
"I was concerned that the ban on MBM being fed to cattle was not being fully implemented. This was borne out by the fact that member-states unilaterally extended it. That showed that they did not have confidence in their own controls. The proposal is now necessary to give the consumers full confidence in the meat that they buy," Mr Byrne said.
If the agriculture ministers agree to impose the new measures, they will be enforced initially for six months, starting in January. During that time, the Dublin-based EU Veterinary Office will send inspectors to all 15 member-states, checking everything from farms to feed mills to assess food safety standards.
"It is reasonable to allow us such time. This information will be sent to me. We may then come to the conclusion that we have adequate controls. If that is the case, then there is an obvious conclusion. Then we can give consideration to lifting the ban," Mr Byrne said.
Meat-and-bone meal, which is used to feed pigs and poultry, represents a €4.5 billion business throughout Europe.
The EU Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, suggested yesterday that the proposed ban would mean that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of such meal would have to be incinerated.
The proposal to remove all cattle over 30 months from the food chain unless they have been tested for BSE is an expensive one from the EU point of view.
Brussels has promised to pay farmers 70 per cent of the value of each rejected animal, with national governments picking up the rest of the bill.
The discovery of new BSE cases throughout Europe, including in countries such as Germany, which had thought it was free of the disease, has precipitated a collapse in beef sales in the EU. The IFA yesterday called for special payments to farmers who face financial ruin because of the collapse in the market.
Mr Fischler acknowledged that the EU would have to import 1.5 million tonnes of soya, maize and other products to fill the gap left by the absence of MBM. Many of these imports are expected to come from the US, a fact that could reignite the debate over genetically-modified crops, which many Europeans fear may be unsafe.
If EU agriculture ministers approve the new measures, they are likely to agree to drop bans on French beef imports imposed by some member-states following a sharp rise in BSE cases in France.
