STRASBOURG, France - A recommendation by scientists that a ban on British beef exports should be eased is "irresponsible and inappropriate," the head of European Parliament committee on mad-cow disease said on Thursday.
The European Union's influential Scientific Veterinary Committee said on Wednesday that British beef should be re-certified for export if computerised records showed there had been no risk of contact with animals infected by BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encelopathy).
Britain does not have a nationwide computer network tracking its herds but a system has been in place for several years in Northern Ireland, where the disease is very rare.
If EU ministers approve the scientists' recommendation, beef from the British province of Northern Ireland could be back on continental tables by Christmas.
But Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, chairwoman of the EU assembly's special committee on BSE, said it was irresponsible to relax the ban when there were still serious concerns about Britain's inability to stop illegal exports.
"To give such a recommendation at this time, when it is fairly clear that a large part of illegal exports from Great Britain took a detour via Northern Ireland, demonstrates that the scientists are not living in the real world," the German Socialist said in a statement.
The European Commission, the EU's executive, decided on Tuesday to start infringement procedures against Britain following the discovery this summer of thousands of tonnes of illegal British beef in Belgium and Germany.
The infringement process takes the form of a letter to London detailing the Commission's findings and telling the government to tighten its checks on fraudulent exports.
The EU imposed a ban on British beef exports in March 1996 after London acknowledged there was scientific evidence of a link between BSE found in some British cattle and the fatal human form of BSE, Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (CJD).
The Commission told the BSE committee on Wednesday it also planned to launch disciplinary proceedings against a number of its own officials involved in handling the mad-cow crisis.
A report from the parliamentary committee due to be published next month is expected to call for wider investigations of the Commission departments responsible for dealing with BSE and a possible change in staff rules.
"There were errors of management right across the board and this seemed to have played a major role (in the crisis)," Reimer Boege, the author of the report, told the committee on Thursday.
The EU assembly is due to decide in November whether to call for the sacking of the entire EU executive for mishandling the mad-cow problem.
At the start of the year, the parliament gave the Commission until December to carry out its demands for improvements in the management of BSE and food safety in general, or face a motion of censure.
In addition to calling for disciplining officials, Euro-deputies recommended the creation of an EU fund to help victims of CJD and their families.
A Commission official told the BSE committee on Thursday that the executive was not working to set up the fund.
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