Brussels, 23/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - The veterinary experts of the Member States approved, though a qualified majority, to European Commission draft decisions aimed at stemming the new mad cow crisis by extending measures already in place to improve the safety of beef in the Union. In doing so, the representatives of the Member States ratified the agreement in principle that the Agriculture Ministers had reached on these measures at their last marathon Council (see EUROPE of 22 November, p.11). Denmark, Austria and Finland voted against. Here is the content of these decisions that the Commission will formally adopt in the coming days:
A. Extension of the rapid screening tests for the diseases among cattle, in two stages.
From 1 January 2001, the rapid screening tests for bovine spongiform encephalopahy (BSE) adopted last June to be applied to a targeted sample of cattle at risk, will be extended to all cattle at risk aged over thirty months. By cattle at risk, one must understand: animals affected by BSE and slaughtered urgently, animals presenting behavioural or neurological symptoms of the illness and animals discarded from the human food chain for being wounded or affected by another disease than BSE (this last category represents 10 to 20% of so-called animals at risk).
From 1 July 2001 this programme of tests will be extended to all cattle over thirty months entering the food chain. The practical modalities of this generalized testing will be defined at a later date on the basis of information gained from Member States concerning experience acquired during the first stage. Member States are, for that purpose, held to provide the Commission with a report by 1 May 2001, enabling it to rest its decision on solid statistics in view of submitting a further proposal in June to the Standing Veterinary Committee establishing the exact number of animals to screen.
The spokesperson for David Byrne, Commissioner responsible for health protection and consumers, stressed on Thursday that the extension of these screening tests (between 400,000 and 500,000 in the first stage, between 6 and 7 million in the second) was in no way a measure to protect public health, but rather a transparency and information measure on the extent of the epidemic in the Union, which will complement the anti-mad cow legislative arsenal already in force at Community level. The co-funding of the tests by the Commission has already been secured, but the amount has not yet been defined. All will depend on the type of tests and number of laboratories to galvanize, the spokesperson added.
B. Ban on the use of certain animal by-products in animal feed.
From 1 March 2001, the carcasses of animals unfit for human consumption will be banned from use in the manufacture of animal feed. This very important safety measure excludes from the animal feed chain all sick animals, pets, circus of zoo animals, as well as animals sacrificed in laboratory experiments. In other words, only the waste of animals earmarked for human consumption will be allowed to enter in the manufacture of animal meal. Through this decision, the Veterinary Committee has agreed to bring forward implementation of the Parliament and Council draft regulation, submitted to the Commission on 19 October 2000, to ban the recycling of animals found dead and unclassified animal matter in feed intended for animals and merge into a single regulation current legislation on animal feed (see EUROPE of 21 October, p.12).