Reprieve for home T-bones
Reprieve for home T-bones
BRITISH butchers should be allowed to continue selling T-bone steaks, despite strong support among EU farm ministers this week for the forced removal of vertebral column from cattle over 12-months-old.
Food safety commissioner, David Byrne, promised to present such proposals in time for the next agriculture council on Feb 19.
But there could be exemptions for some member states.
Much will depend on the past implementation of the meat and bonemeal ban and whether this has been policed effectively. The EUs Scientific Steering Committee has already praised the UK in this respect, and Mr Byrne said this would be fully taken into account.
But there could be further exceptions. "The commission will also examine whether derogations are acceptable for certain member states with a low incidence of BSE," explained council president, Margareta Winberg.
This watering down of the plan followed strong representations by several ministers, in particular the Irish and Italians.
"While I believe we should take community and not national decisions on the removal of the vertebral column, those decisions could, and indeed should, take account of the risk involved in individual member states," said Irish farm minister, Joe Walsh.
Mr Byrne accepted this argument, adding that there would be a lot of technical details to thrash out before going ahead with a ban.
But calls by some member states to lower the age of compulsory BSE-testing from 30 months to 24 months, (following the discovery of BSE in a younger animal in Germany), were not supported.