MOST of the blame for the mishandling of the BSE crisis in the early 1990s has been laid at the door of the British government in a draft report by members of the European Parliament, who also criticise EU Commissioners, including Mr Ray MacSharry.
The dralt report places the bulk of the blame for the mishandling of the crisis on the British authorities. But EU Commissioners, most notably Mr MacSharry, and the Council of Agriculture Ministers are also faulted.
The report finds that the Commission gave priority to the management of the beef market over potential human health risks by playing down those risks, and it cites a number of the actions of Mr MacSharry, Agriculture Commissioner from 1989 to the end of 1992, to support its case.
The draft report of the European Parliament's special committee of inquiry into the handling of the BSE crisis was made public yesterday but is still to be formally approved.
It urges the transfer of responsibilities for public health inspections from the Commission's Agriculture and Industry directorates to the Health directorate of the current Irish Commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn, or the Consumer Affairs directorate of Ms Emma Bonino.
It insists on the need for extra transparency in the Union's conduct of its business and calls on ministers to provide extra money to expand the inspectorates and for treaty amendments to clarify Union competences in the field of public health.
The report specifically rejects as "scarcely credible" an explanation given by the head of Mr MacSharry's directorate, Mr Guy Legras, of an aide memoire revealed by The Irish Times and Liberation in November. The note, a personal summary of a meeting of the MacSharry cabinet in September 1990, included the line "BSE stop any meeting".
Although Mr Legras testified that his note only reflected a moment of anger on the part of Mr MacSharry, the report finds that "the thrust of Commission management of the issue and the acknowledged interest of the former Commissioner in preventing beef market problems make Mr Legras's interpretation scarcely credible."
Mr MacSharry is also criticised for diluting the advice of his own officials at a special ministerial meeting in June 1990 called to deal with the crisis. The officials had even at that stage suggested a ban on the export of British beef that had not been deboned.
The report, while deploring the failures of co ordination within separate branches of the Commission, the weaknesses of some of the EU's specialist scientific committees and the lack of transparency, also finds that the Commission was "carrying out a policy of minimisation of the problem which could, at certain times, manifest itself as a policy of disinformation".
It is particularly critical of the failure of the Commission to propose a ban on the exportation of contaminated British meat and bonemeal from 1989 on. "On this issue, as on the majority of BSE related activities between June 1990 and 1994," the report says, "one observes a silence which in the light of our inquiries can not be considered accidental". It would be six years before the Commission decided on a ban.
And the report expresses concern at the halting of EU BSE related veterinary inspections in Britain between mid 1990 and 1994 in the face of political pressure from Britain.
The report explicitly argues that as the management of the BSE crisis was always handled at the highest level, commissioners should not escape political responsibility.
The committee finds negligence on the part of the Commission, mitigated by the partial responsibility of ministers, but it complains that it has no means of sanctioning individual commissioners or former commissioners. The report is the first conducted by MEPs under new powers granted by the Maastricht Treaty.
Its principal target, however, is the British government: "All evidence points to the principal culpability of the UK" in the handling of the crisis, the report argues.
The British authorities failed to prevent the feeding of contaminated meat and bone meal to ruminants because of weaknesses in the sterilisation system and administrative controls, allowing such feed still to be given to animals until 1996.
They failed to curb exports of meat and bone meal after an internal ban on use in 1989, leading to contamination of other EU herds, put pressure on the Commission to stop inspections between 1990 and 1994, used partial readings of the scientific evidence and failed to implement regulations on identification of animals.
The Council of Agriculture Ministers is criticised for excessive reliance on the secretive Standing Veterinary Committee and its failure to discuss BSE at a political level between June 1990 and 1994. It also cut back Commission budget proposals for an increase in public health and veterinary inspection services and failed to provide the additional resources needed by the Commission for research.
The President of the European Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, will respond to the report in the parliament tomorrow.
