The EU's Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner, David Byrne, has accused a number of European countries, including Germany and Spain or not doing enough to guard against BSE. Commissioner Byrne is in Germany tonight for talks with the country's health minister, Andrea Fischer. Confirmation of BSE cases in Germany and France has caused a slump in beef sales and a crisis in consumer confidence.
In Berlin tonight David Byrne will deliver a blunt message to Germany's Health Minister. He says that countries like Germany and Spain were too complacent in confronting BSE. The fear in Brussels is that after the BSE outbreak in Britain, infected low-cost animal feed was dumped onto export markets and is now being discovered in mainland European herds.
Last Tuesday EU farm ministers agreed to a massive increase in the cattle testing programme in an attempt to discover the scale of the problem. EU vets are due to review the situation tomorrow. Agriculture ministers will meet in eight days time and Commissioner Byrne wants health ministers at those talks. The fear is the problem will get worse, not better. The suspicion is that BSE has spread well beyond Britain, its source of origin.
