France to lift illegal ban on imports of British beef

France is expected to lift its ban on importing British beef in the next few days after French experts decided yesterday that it no longer poses a significant risk to humans.

The decision by the French food safety agency should bring to a rapid close a three-year political and legal battle, which has soured relations between the two countries.

The French government, facing EU fines of €158,250 (£100,000) a day if it maintains the ban, is expected to announce next week that it has accepted its experts' advice.

Ben Gill, president of the National Farmers' Union, said: "This lamentable situation should never have happened. The French government must now listen to its agency and lift the ban. This is a victory for British farmers, but a hollow one. Who knows how much desperately-needed cash our industry has been deprived of in the last three years because of this ban?

"Our farmers have been left in limbo by the arrogant prevarication and shameless protectionism of the French authorities."

Whether France actually buys any British beef remains to be seen. Even though the BSE epidemic has been under control for several years, consumer resistance is high across the Continent. All other EU countries lifted the ban in 1999 but sales have been minimal.

Only one abattoir in Britain has equipped itself to meet the rigorous rules for limited exports of beef from young animals, accepted by other European countries but rejected by France until now. Even so, the likely decision of the French government to lift its unilateral ban – which was condemned as illegal last year by the European Court – will be welcome news for Britain's hard-pressed farmers.

It should help Britain rehabilitate the reputation of its beef and start the slow business of rebuilding its markets abroad, destroyed by the BSE epidemic in the early 1990s and by the finding in 1996 that the disease could be passed on to humans as the incurable variant CJD.

In 1999, the French food safety agency, Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments (AFSSA), rejected an EU decision to end the three-year-old ban on British beef exports.

The agency said that there was not sufficient evidence that the BSE epidemic had been controlled in Britain, or sufficient proof that exported beef would come, as promised, from animals under 30 months old.

Yesterday, the same agency said that importing British beef would not "alter the level of safety currently guaranteed to consumers in France".

What has changed? First, the BSE epidemic has clearly been defeated in Britain. There have been 777 cases this year compared with 37,280 at the height of the "mad cow" crisis in 1992. Second, the gap between the number of BSE cases in Britain and the number in France has narrowed dramatically.

The AFSSA report said yesterday that there were now seven cases in the UK for every one in France. The true ratio is more like four to one.

There were 1,019 cases in Britain last year, compared with 274 in France.

The explosion of the disease in France, gloomily forecast three years ago, has not happened. Despite intensive testing, the number of French cases this year is running roughly at the same level.

This has taken the political heat out of the issue and allowed the AFSSA experts, who are more politically conscious than they care to admit, to give the French government an honourable way out of the impasse.

The British Government and the European Commission have asked the European Court for a second ruling against France, which might lead to fines of €158,250 (£100,000) a day, while the embargo lasts.

French beef farmers protested yesterday against the experts' decision, complaining that their market prices had not yet recovered from the BSE crisis.

Consumer organisations were philosophical but French shoppers themselves are unlikely to rediscover their taste for British beef in the near future. One butcher in Paris who used to sell Scottish beef, said: "The embargo may be lifted but I don't see there being any demand. I won't have it in my shop.If you have a single label saying British beef, the shoppers will think it's all British beef and go elsewhere."