November 18, 2005

EU might officially resume UK beef imports early 2006

The EU might officially resume UK beef imports in early 2006, after a 10-year export ban due to mad cow disease, or BSE.

Next week, Britain would present its latest BSE update to EU veterinary experts. Another meeting was scheduled for Nov 29. If a lift on the ban was approved then, the European Commission would ask EU member states to officially lift the ban.

The commission had earlier set down two prerequisites for lifting the ban on UK beef. One was that British BSE cases had to fall below 200 cases a million head of adult cattle. The other was a favourable report by the EU's Food and Veterinary Office on British mad cow disease controls.

Britain has met both conditions, according to the EU Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General earlier.

Industry reports suggested other EU states were not expected to oppose lifting the British ban.

So far, the UK has only been allowed limited beef trade under several schemes. These included a date-based scheme allowing meat from animals aged between six and nine months to be sold. Another scheme involved other EU countries sending meat to the UK for processing and subsequent re-exporting.