Brussels, 25/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 25 June, the European Commission adopted a regulation amending measures for the categorisation of countries according to their bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) risk. The regulation, which will come into force from 1 July, also lays down rules for the collection of specified risk material (SRM) and rules governing the import of live animals and animal products into the EU.
This will bring Community rules into line with the recommendations of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). All countries will be listed under one of three (as opposed to the former four) headings: negligible BSE risk, controlled BSE risk and undetermined BSE risk. EU countries, along with some other third countries (United States, Chile, Canada, Iceland, Norway and Taiwan) are listed under the “controlled BSE risk” heading. Other beef producing countries, such as Argentina, Australia, Uruguay, New Zealand and Singapore come under the first heading, “negligible BSE risk”. All the world's other countries are included under the third heading. The new regulation amends the 2001 transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) regulation. (lc)