French ban on British beef judged 'unlawful'

France is in breach of European Union law by still refusing to import British beef, a European court judge has ruled.

An advocate-general of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg says the French could not refuse to implement a European Commission decision to resume the EU trade in British beef at the end of the mad cow crisis.

France is legally bound to take British beef coming directly from the UK, but a French ban on indirect imports - British beef arriving in France via a third country - was justified in the absence of a complete set of Community rules concerning traceability and labelling, the ruling states.

Advocate-General Jean Mischo's "opinion" will now be considered by the full court before a final verdict later this year or early next.

He says the Commission banned the export of cattle, beef and veal from the UK to other EU countries in March 1996 following consumer concerns about the spread of BSE.

It was lifted in August 1999 subject to very strict conditions governing the origin and traceability of cattle in the UK - and notably a "Date-Based Export Scheme" which the Commission approved in November 1998, setting out requirements for meat and meat products exported from the UK.

But France refused to comply, citing the concerns of its own national Food Safety Agency, which considered there was still a health risk from British beef.

The Advocate-General said it was already established in EU case-law that a member state could not claim that a Community measure was unlawful when defending itself against a complaint that it had failed to apply the measure.

But he went on: "France would not have been entirely without solid arguments for challenging the date for resumption of exports, given the Community requirements laid down in 1998.

"In 1999 the Commission had still not received notification from all the member states of the choices made with regard to specific marking, so that complete traceability and appropriate labelling was not ensured."