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EU reaches mad cow deal, ban still angers Britain

LUXEMBOURG: European Union farm ministers ended two days of hard bargaining on Wednesday with agreement on an arsenal of measures to end Mad Cow disease threatening Europe's beef industry with collapse.

But Britain, which must slaughter thousands of cattle, bitterly rounded on its EU partners for failing to grant an immediate lifting of a worldwide ban on its beef.

British Agriculture Minister Douglas Hogg, who won less EU compensation for British farmers than he wanted, said the ban was not justified.

"It is not based on scientific analysis. It should be removed," he told a news conference.

London declined to endorse the deal which foresees the intervention buying of beef to support weak prices -- an issue strongly fought for by France, Ireland and Belgium.

Under immense pressure from its partners -- Britain opted not to block the deal and now has until the end of April to come up with a plan for the slaughter of cattle possibly infected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Britain wanted the import ban lifted by the end of April while the final text said the ban would be reviewed only six weeks after it was imposed at the end of March.

Other EU states will link a lifting of the ban to the slaughter programme, although diplomats stressed there was no direct formal connection.

The ban was imposed after Britain's announcement last month of a possible link between BSE and its fatal human equivalent Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Farm ministers' marathon efforts, at talks which began on Monday, were an attempt to reassure consumers that eating beef would not give them the human version of Mad Cow disease.

"Europe has not spared any effort on the expense," French Agriculture Minister Philippe Vasseur told reporters, adding "serenity would be restored".

Britain, which alone will have to pay for the destruction of the carcasses, has calculated it may be necessary to kill some 15,000 cattle aged over 30 months a week for five or six years to eradicate the disease.

But the entire slaughter programme will be split 70-30 between the EU and Britain. Hogg had argued for 80-20 split.

The deal puts the total annual cost to the EU's budget at 32O million European currency units ($400 million).

European Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler told a news conference the measures represented an "important signal" and said the British ban was "clearly only a temporary measure".

"Our objective is to restore consumer confidence, stability on the markets and the (EU's) single market," said a draft text, which was released to reporters.

The agreed text extended a compensation scheme announced earlier for Britain to other EU countries which might need to slaughter some cattle to wipe out the disease.

This would mean countries such as the Netherlands and Portugal, with herds of British-origin cattle imported before the latest Mad Cow scare, would have to meet only 30 percent of the compensation costs, the rest being met by EU funds.

Of the EU's 15 countries, Britain has the worst record on BSE, or Mad Cow disease, registering 200 or so new cases of the brain infection each week.

"The entire document has now been agreed," Irish Farm Minister Ivan Yates said.

A British diplomat said failure to lift the ban meant London would not be bound by the slaughter-programme deadlines.

But Hogg's Belgian and French counterparts suggested the British stance was symbolic and said Hogg would in fact fall in with the substance of the deal.

"The United Kingdom will implement all the measures agreed," Belgian Farm Minister Karel Pixten said as he left the meeting.-Reuter