BRUSSELS - The European Commission on Wednesday admitted provisions to regulate meat production in the European Union were still inadequate but denied its officials should be disciplined over the madcow crisis.
However it said the EU could help finance a "no-fault" compensation scheme for families of victims of the new variant of Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (CJD), providing that money also came from member states.
In a press release on its fourth report on BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), the Commission highlighted measures it had taken so far to eradicate the disease, protect public health and promised a further tightening of food safety rules.
"Current investigations have shown that there are deficiencies in the official control of meat production...and therefore the Commission will take measures to strengthen the veterinary checks system," it quoted European Food Safety Commissioner Emma Bonino as saying.
The full report is intended to answer European Parliament accusations the Commission failed to act quickly enough to stem the spread of madcow disease.
Parliamentarians have been calling for disciplinary measures to be enacted against those it believes responsible. Some have even threatened the Commission with parliament's ultimate weapon -- a censure motion, or sacking of the entire executive.
But the Commission said it had examined the matter and "not found any ground which would justify the opening of the disciplinary procedure."
"We have put our house in order. The new management in the veterinary field has the full confidence of the Commission," said Erkki Liikanen, the Commissioner responsible for personnel.
European parliamentarians hinted the Commission may now have done enough to placate most sections of the assembly.
"We do feel there have been major changes but it's a little too early to say. We've been surprised at how little has been done to reprimand the officials involved," MEP Philip Whitehead, Socialist Group co-ordinator of the BSE committee, said.
The EU banned exports of British beef in March 1996, after London admitted a possible link between BSE and CJD, a similar brain-wasting disease in humans.
The Commission pointed out that at the peak of the crisis in 1992 and 1993 some 3,000 new cases of BSE were being registered every month, whereas this year the figure is down below 500.
But the discovery of illegal British beef exports in other member states this summer have dented fresh hopes of an early lifting of the 18-month-old ban.
In September the Commission started legal procedings against Britain, which it noted was "in breach of its obligations in respect of controls in abbatoirs and meat plants."
Britain's case has been further hampered by new scientific evidence published earlier this month, which strengthened the causal link between the new variant of CJD in humans and BSE in animals.
Commission officials say privately the change of government in Britain has done much to improve relations between London and Brussels, and help speed up implementation of new controls.
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