BRUSSELS (June 9, 1998 12:50 p.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) - The European Commission, convinced that British beef is now safe to eat, is set to recommend the complete lifting of the two-year-old ban on its export, sources said Tuesday.
Although the proposal to free British beef exports will be made Wednesday, the sources could not say when the ban, ordered in March 1996 to halt exports of beef from cattle that might be suffering from mad cow disease, would be lifted.
A British spokesman said there were still several formal hurdles to clear, but the embargo could, in the best scenario, be lifted in autumn.
The EC's veterinary committee is meeting in special session on Friday, and could approve the recommendation by a majority vote. Even if it does not, the proposal would go to European Union agriculture ministers.
The global ban on British beef was declared after Britain announced a link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease ( CJD), a fatal brain-wasting condition in humans which has no known cure.
EC Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler will unveil the conditions for lifting the worldwide ban at Wednesday's meeting.
They will concern only cattle born after Aug. 1, 1996, when the EU banned the raising of cattle on feed made from animal offal, considered the main source of BSE transmission.
Any lifting of the embargo will affect most British beef production, since livestock raised intensively is generally slaughtered after 22 months.
Only dairy cattle, slaughtered aged five or six and usually used for sausage meat, pate and other beef-based products, would continue to be banned for the time being as they would have been born before 1996.
Despite the ban, and the fact that 25 people have died of a brain disease called new-variant CJD which they developed after eating contaminated meat, Britons have continued to eat beef.
British officials have said they hope BSE will be completely eradicated in Britain by 2002.
The disease affects eight of the EU's 15 countries, although the number of recorded cases in Britain far outweighs that of the rest of the Union.
Northern Ireland on June 1 resumed limited beef exports, that of deboned beef from cattle aged between six and 30 months and from herds certified BSE- free.
Northern Ireland's mainly grass-fed cattle have been far less affected by the BSE epidemic than mainland Britain, where 170,000 cattle were hit.
The decision to lift the ban on beef from Northern Ireland was taken by EU agriculture ministers on March 16, although Belgium and Germany voted against and two other countries, Luxembourg and Spain, abstained.
By MARIE-NOELLE BLESSIG, Agence France-Presse
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