Go-ahead for all-Europe SRM ban

19 June 2000



Go-ahead for all-Europe SRM ban

By Philip Clarke

A PAN-EUROPEAN ban on specified risk materials (SRMs) will come into effect on 1 October, almost six years after the European Commission first tried to introduce the controls.

At a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday (19 June), agriculture ministers failed to throw out a commission proposal, with only Austria, Finland, Greece and Spain voting against.

At least eight out of fifteen member states would have had to oppose the measure in order to block it.

“This is a major breakthrough,” said consumer affairs commissioner David Byrne.

“This measure is the best possible safeguard to keep meat products clear of BSE infectivity and to protect consumers from the risk of new variant CJD.”

The commission may now press on with the legislation under which a two-tier control system will be introduced.

High risk BSE countries – Portugal and the UK – will have to remove a long list of SRMs, but the thirteen other member states will now have to exclude brains, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord and ileum of cattle, sheep and goats.

Currently only eight countries have any controls at all, even though the exclusion of SRMs from food and feed has been identified by top EU scientists as the key factor in controlling the spread of BSE.

One of the sticking points in recent discussions has been the treatment of third country meat imports.

A late revision to the commissions proposal means that these too will be banned from 1 April, 2001 unless they are from BSE-free countries or accompanied by an appropriate certificate showing the SRMs have been removed.