Brussels, 03/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - Entry into the new millennium will have marked a turning point in the management of the mad cow crisis in the European Union. 1 January 2001 was the starting date for the implementation of systematic BSE screening in all cattle at risk (sick animals, slaughtered urgently or presenting neurological symptoms of BSE) of under thirty moths of age in all Member States, for the lifting of measures of restrictions imposed by certain Member States on the import of French beef and for the temporary ban on meat and bone meal in all feed of farm animals, decided on 4 December last. Here is a view o the situation:
Screening tests: All Member States have set about the task, with variable degrees of capacities and difficulties, linked to the lack of approved laboratories able to carry out these tests. Some Member States, like France, Germany and Denmark are even in advance of the Community timetable, stating now already screening tests on all cattle of under thirty moths of age entering the food chain, which are not compulsory in the Union until 1 July, but that the United Kingdom has already been doing since April 1996 for having been at the origin of the first mad cow crisis. Portugal has also announced its intention of bringing this measure forward by implementing it from April. In France the screening mechanism will initially concern some 20,000 tests a week and be operational by the end of January with 13 approved laboratories, then to increase in power and achieve its full capacity with 80,000 to 100,000 weekly tests. 26 laboratories are currently waiting for approval.. In Italy (where two cases of mad cow have been detected), only two laboratories are to date capable of carrying out the tests, with 70 tests a day, or some one thousand a week (whereas 14,000 would be required, according to La Repubblica). "We must note that we are not ready", said Agriculture Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio. By February ten other laboratories should be operational. In the Netherlands (where 8 cases of BSE have been recorded), according to the Ministry of Agriculture, testing capabilities amount to 2,500 tests a day. In Greece (where no case of mad cow has been reported), some 35,000 animals will soon be tested, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. In Germany, where tests are carried out by the Laender, the federal authorities are said not to have figures. In Ireland (where 596 cases of BSE have been registered), a decision by the Government should come this month. I Spain (2 cases) 546,000 tests should be carried out in the two phases of the screening. Sweden and Finland, where no case has been reported, do not escape the obligation to carry out tests among cattle at risk. Finland nevertheless hopes to be exempted from the second phase of testing.
Bilateral measures concerning the restrictions on the import of French beef that Austria, Spain and Italy were urged to lift. The Commission said on Wednesday that it had receive no official notification from these Member states. The issue could be broached by the Steering Scientific Committee that will decide on 11 and 12 January on the relevance of the additi9onal measures adopted by France.
Whereas these Community measures are being out in place, the polemic is raging in Germany. The recording of 7 cases of mad cow since the apparition of the first case in November in a country that thought itself sheltered from the epizooty has put politicians on the spot. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the accusation leveled by Commissioner David Byrne that Germany had neglected a scientific report drawn up by the Union in March (on the geographic risk of incidents of BSE in Member States) and that warned it against the probable appearance of BSE on its territory drew the rage of the Secretary General of the CDU on the Minister of Agriculture Karl-Heinz Funkie and Minister of Health Andrea Fischer. Chancellor Schroeder is said to have cooled things by stressing in his New Year wishes that "seeking a guilty party serves no purpose nor does calling for resignations". The Chancellor nevertheless undertook to "analyzes the failings at all political levels" that led to the appearance of th4e crisis in the country.