Brussels, 26/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - For their first meeting of the new millennium, which is also the first under Swedish President Margareta Winberg, the EU Agriculture Ministers will, on Monday, hold a long exchange of views with Commissioners Franz Fischler and David Byrne on the latest developments in the BSE crisis. Informal discussions will begin over lunch before continuing at a formal meeting from 15h00 on. With Mr Fischler, stock will be taken of the situation of the beef market and the impact the crisis will have on stock farmers. Mr Byrne, for his part, will present an analysis of responses received by the Commission further to a questionnaire addressed, on 4 January, to the Member States for measuring the degree of application of the Community legislation. In this context, additional measures envisaged in the opinion of the Scientific Steering Committee will also be tackled, and above all the extraction of the vertebral column, which seems to be the trickiest matter. France has already taken measures for the vertebral column to be extracted before the meat is cut up by butchers. Such extraction undertaken earlier at the slaughter house would, however, pose major problems of restructuring for the slaughter lines as well as in the transport of meat. Some ministers may also return to matters of financing and intervention, to Community rules allowing competition distortion to be avoided and to the development of protein crop production (see EUROPE of 15 January, p.10 and 25 January, p.12).
Other points on the agenda are:
The Council is expected to adopt, without debate, the changes brought to the common market organisation for bananas that had been the object of a political agreement on 19 December last.