020737 EU Looks to Fine France Over BeefJuly 18, 2002Brussels, Belgium - The European Commission asked a court to fine France about $160,000 a day for refusing to lift a ban on British beef imports imposed because of fears over "mad cow" disease. The fine could be imposed within "a few months" if the European Court of Justice agrees to use its "accelerated procedure" in deciding whether to approve it, commission spokeswoman Beate Gminder said. Otherwise, the procedure could take up to two years. "There is no excuse for the ban not to be lifted," said British Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Margaret Beckett. The EU's head office ordered EU nations to lift a ban on British beef imports in 1999, three years after it imposed the restrictions at the height of Britain's mad cow scare. Although the other 13 EU members resumed imports, France rejected the findings of EU scientific experts that new safety measures introduced in Britain made its beef as safe as that in other European nations. The European Court of Justice ruled in December that the ban violated EU law. The French holdout has infuriated British farmers, who claim the ban is costing them some 300 million pounds ($470 million) a year as they struggle to overcome the impact of the mad cow scare and last year's foot-and-mouth epidemic. Paris says it is awaiting a new opinion from its food safety agency in the autumn before making a decision on relaxing the ban. Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a fatal brain-wasting disease was first identified in cattle in 1986 and was blamed on ground remains of other animals, notably sheep, in cattle feed. In 1996, the British government acknowledged a link between the cattle ailment and an equally fatal human ailment known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. By then, tens- of-thousands of British cattle were infected with mad cow disease prompting destruction of millions of animals and tough new health measures.
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