EURO-BRIEFS
EURO-BRIEFS
• ITALY is dropping the age at which it routinely tests cattle for BSE at abattoirs from 30 months to 24 months. This puts it in line with France and Germany, which have already introduced this stricter interpretation of EU law. So far this year Italy has tested about 206,000 animals of which 23 have been "BSE positive".
• FRENCH beef producers have stepped up their campaign for a new package of aid to help them deal with this years BSE-induced drop in incomes. A meat factory at Flers in north-west France was occupied by farmers on Tuesday, and their leaders warned of further action against the government, meat importers and supermarkets in the weeks ahead.
• BRUSSELS has launched a major new consultation into biotechnology, inviting comments from stakeholders and the public. Noting that the issues went "far beyond the current focus on genetically modified foods", EU president, Romano Prodi, said the EU needed to be at the forefront of scientific development, not lagging behind the US.
• EXPANSION of the EU to the east is an "irreversible process", enlargement commissioner, Gunther Vergheugan, told MEPs in Strasbourg this week. But, while the target date for new members of 2004 was "useful", there was still a huge amount of work to do in agriculture, including deciding on quotas, market systems and aid payments. *
GERMANY has topped the 100 mark in its number of BSE casualties, the latest two cases being found in the southern region of Bavaria. The total, in a country that claimed to be BSE-free just 10 months ago, now stands at 101, of which 28 have been picked up by routine testing.
INCREASES in the use of non-tariff barriers to trade, such as plant and animal health requirements, are preventing producers in less developed countries from selling to developed food markets such as the EU. A report this week from the Paris-based OECD notes that less-developed countries have not increased market share since the 1995 GATT round.