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Brown confident beef ban will be lifted

- 23 November 1998
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23 November 1998

Brown confident beef ban will be lifted

By FWi staff

AGRICULTURE Minister Nick Brown is confident that the export ban on British beef will be lifted at todays meeting (Monday) of European agriculture ministers in Brussels.

After informal talks with his European counterparts during the weekend, Mr Brown said he was confident the ban would be lifted.

“I am certain – as certain as certain as I can be before the meeting – that we will get the decision we want,” Mr Brown told GMTV.

But Germany and France want the ban to stay and Brussels sources expect it to be lifted only by the narrowest of majorities.

The move will only apply to de-boned beef from cattle born after 1 August, 1996.

It is expected that the European Commission will insist on the culling of a further 12,000 offspring from cows that have died of BSE if the ban is lifted.

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