Reuters | October 11, 1999 | By David Evans
BRUSSELS - The European Commission is under pressure to take legal action against France over a refusal to import British beef, while using similar arguments to France in keeping U.S. hormone-treated meat out of Europe, analysts say.
France has said it will not lift a 3-1/2 year embargo on British beef over mad cow disease. In a similar standoff, the EU executive insists its decade-old ban on U.S. meat cannot be lifted. Both arguments rely on the interpretation of science.
"What the French are doing is in line with what the EU is doing with the Americans. There is an echo here," said analyst Bruce Ross of Brussels-based Ross Gordon Consultants.
Britain argues its exported beef meets strict EU quality criteria - it is deboned and comes from animals born after August 1996 - and is as safe as any in Europe.
France, however, says it has new evidence justifying a ban and has presented this to the Commission on Friday.
Both the cross-Channel and the transatlantic beef rows are rooted in the "precautionary principle" - the idea that one party has a right to block products if it has evidence of a potential risk to consumers.
In the hormone-treated beef case, the EU has released only a preliminary scientific study saying the meat was potentially harmful. A full range of 17 other studies will not be finished until the middle of next year.
PRODI SEES FOOD SAFETY AS KEY
Last week new Commission President Romano Prodi pledged to make food safety a priority in his new administration. He also said the EU would push to have the precautionary principle enshrined in any new World Trade Organisation (WTO) accord.
Consumer concerns over food safety have increasingly led to international trade spats, in which protectionism is usually the counter-charge to domestic measures aimed at protecting public health or at least bolstering public confidence.
A Belgian scandal earlier this year over animal feed contaminated with cancer-causing dioxins again showed how easily public confidence can be shaken.
French Environment Minister Dominique Voynet on Sunday stressed the boycott of British beef was not economically motivated.
"It's a matter of putting into practice the principle of precaution. It's not a matter of a protectionist measure," she said.
But there are important differences between the two cases, and the nature of the French evidence, due to be assessed by EU scientists on Thursday, will be key.
France was party to a decision by EU ministers nearly a year ago to lift the British ban and, unless it has compelling fresh evidence, looks to be on shaky legal ground in now saying it will not enforce EU law.
The EU has never recognised the safety of beef from U.S. cattle injected with growth hormones, and says its preliminary scientific studies have shown a potential cancer risk - enough to justify a ban despite a WTO ruling that it is illegal.
"It all depends on what the French evidence is. There has been an (EU ministerial) agreement. In the hormone beef case, the scientific evidence is still cloudy," said Paul Brenton, trade economist at the Centre for European Policy Studies.
A POLITICAL SOLUTION?
Commission officials say they have both a duty to examine any evidence put forward by France, and to uphold EU law if the science raises no new doubts.
But consumer issues have taken on such political sensitivity since the mad cow crisis of the early 1990s, that the Commission may avoid court action and look for a political solution.
"I can't see the Commission rushing to take France to court," Ross said.
News on Monday that the French food safety agency, which has recommended the import ban, had said British beef should be allowed to be transported through the country, means France cannot be accused of preventing goods being sold in other EU countries.
"We need to find a political solution to this," one EU official said.
French junior minister Marylise Lebranchu is due to meet European Food Safety Commissioner David Byrne on Tuesday to discuss the embargo.
French farm and health ministers are in a difficult position. Amid such a sensitive food safety climate they cannot ignore the advice of their independent experts - even if the advice is contrary to previously agreed policy.
This is particularly true in France, where government ministers were charged with involvement in an AIDS-infected blood scandal in the 1980s, which victims claim has killed at least 1,000 people.
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