Brussels, 11/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 11 July, the EU Court of Justice rejected France's appeal against the 2011 ruling of the General Court of the EU (T-257/07 - EUROPE 10449), validating less binding measures of surveillance and eradication adopted by the European Commission in June 2008 for the protection against transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) in goats and sheep. The Commission had revised the previous protection measures - considered too radical because they required the culling of whole herds - on the basis of new data that attested: - the absence of the epidemiological link between scrapie in sheep and BSE in cattle that could affect humans; - the very unlikely prevalence of BSE among sheep and goats, thanks to the new test allowing scrapie to be distinguished from BSE. The General Court had rejected action by France that challenged the decision, arguing that the Commission had made a faulty assessment and managed the risk badly. The Court, to which France referred the matter, today upholds the General Court's analysis: - the Commission had not committed any manifest error of risk assessment by considering that, on the basis of new data, the likelihood of TSE in goats and sheep, other than BSE, being transmissible to humans; - the General Court considered, quite rightly, that, when the new elements - such as new knowledge or new scientific discoveries - modifying the perception of the risk or showing that the risk can be circumvented by less binding measures than those already existing, the Commission must ensure the regulation is adapted to the new rules. (FG/transl.jl)