Traduction de «Comité scientifique du Commonwealth britannique » (Français → Anglais) :

I have undertaken every effort to demonstrate that: I have asked an evaluation of the objections of the French scientists by the Scientific Steering Committee of the EU which unanimously agreed that the objections raised would not necessitate a change of the British export scheme, I have discussed with the French and the British authorities what could still possible be done to improve protection and reduce risk.

The scientific evidence brought forward by France was re-evaluated by the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) of the European Union, on whose scientific risk assessment the provisions foreseen in the UK Date Based Export Scheme were based.

– In my innocence and naivety I thought that when the scientific steering committee met last week and made their announcement, indeed the announcement was made by Mr Pascale, himself a Frenchman as President of that committee, indicating the unanimous approval of that committee that British beef is as safe as any other beef in the EU or possibly safer than any beef worldwide, that was the top of the pyramid.

The scientific committee has clearly demonstrated its belief that British beef is as safe as any other beef anywhere in the European Union and under those circumstances I am sure that the Commissioner would agree with me that a delay of perhaps another few days only is better than two or three years going through courts which ultimately frustrates everybody, satisfies nobody and in particular does not satisfy British farmers who have followed the rule of law, have done what has been asked of them and are now in a position to sell an excellent product throughout the whole of the European Union.

Mr Bradley, who from 1969 to 1991 was head of the UK's Central Veterinary Laboratory and was subsequently an adviser to the British Ministry of Agriculture, has acted as rapporteur on BSE at the full meetings of the Scientific Veterinary Committee; it emerges, furthermore, from some of the minutes of the committee meetings that a number of members have suggested that Mr Bradley may have withheld information (see minutes of the meeting of the public health section of the Scientific Veterinary Committee, 11 May 1995 - Annex 23).

Three assertions in these articles directly concern the Commission. 1. The Commission is said to have allowed meat-and-bone meal "which the British did not want themselves" to be exported to other countries in the Union. 2. Commission staff are said not only to have ignored an opinion of the Committee issued on 8 March this year but to have exerted pressures to try to prevent the opinion from being issued. 3. By deciding to lift the ban on exports of gelatin, tallow and semen from the United Kingdom, the Commission is said to have put aside the warnings of the Committee. 1. Between 1988 and 1990, the Commission raised the issue of UK ...[+++]meat-and- bone meal several times in the Standing Veterinary Committee.