001140 UK's Has No Plans for Ban on French Beef

London - The British government welcomed French moves to tighten up export controls of its beef products and said it had no plans to ban them.

After all-night talks in Brussels, France's Jean Glavany told a meeting of European Union farm ministers he was taking immediate measures to stop the export of animal feed and T-bone steaks to other EU and non-EU countries.

France has seen an alarming rise in the number of cases of mad cow disease or BSE.

“We strongly welcome the measures agreed overnight,” Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman told reporters. France's latest food scare was sparked last month when three supermarket chains said they had unknowingly sold beef which was potentially contaminated with mad cow disease.

A Times newspaper report said on Tuesday that Blair had been warned in a letter from his agriculture minister, Nick Brown, that there was a risk BSE- infected French beef could have made its way into the British food chain.

But Blair's spokesman said there was no impetus for a unilateral embargo of the sort already imposed by Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria and -- on Tuesday morning -- the Czech Republic.

“Nick Brown has not written to the Prime Minister saying we should ban French beef,” he said.

Experts in Britain's Food Standards Agency, as well as from France and the European Commission (news - web sites), have all said there was no need for a precautionary ban. “We will be guided by science and the law,” Blair's spokesman said.

More Than 80 Dead In Britain

BSE and its human form, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (nvCJD) has killed more than 80 people in Britain since the mid-1990s and two in France. There is no known cure for the disease which inevitably ends in death.

France will still not accept British beef despite a European Union ruling that it is safe to eat following a massive BSE outbreak in the 1980s and 1990s.

There is evidence that BSE in France was sourced from contaminated animal feed bought from Britain.

The Times said Brown wrote to Blair and Health Secretary Alan Milburn last week, telling them that beef aged over 30 months from France and other EU states could have been sold in Britain because there were not enough controls.

In Britain, beef from cattle older than 30 months is not allowed to enter the food chain.

“That is illegal,” Blair's spokesman said. “There is no evidence that older beef is getting through.”

Britons consume 800,000 tons of beef each year with just over one percent of the total coming from France.

The British livestock industry was hammered as the world turned its back on its beef after pictures of cows trembling uncontrollably and collapsing were shown around the globe.

France is trying to avert the same sort of crisis but its beef sales have plunged 40% in recent weeks.

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