THE FORMER European commissioner for agriculture, Mr Ray MacSharry, dismissed as fanciful suggestions from several MEPs that he had ordered officials not to talk about BSE.
MEPs repeatedly cited evidence published in yesterday's French paper Liberation and in The Irish Times that the head of the agriculture directorate, Mr Guy Legras, had recorded in an aide-memoire of a meeting with the commissioner "BSE: Stop any meeting".
Each time Mr MacSharry denied such an order had been given. "Never at any time have I exercised any pressure on anybody not to in any way disclose any information regarding this particular problem," he told one MEP
He said the evidence of the fact of some 60 meetings of the Standing Veterinary Committee and Scientific Veterinary Committee proved no such order had been given. He said that of 21 legal actions taken by the Commission until today, nine had been taken by him.
Responding to questions about why there had been no Commission BSE inspections in Britain between mid-June 1990 and 1994, Mr MacSharry said the Commission for some of that time had no legal base for inspections of renderers and meat plants until the institution of the single market in 1993.
He said the Commission would have required hundreds of inspectors if they were to be expected to visit abattoirs, poultry plants, and even fish farms. There was simply no political will in the member-states that they should do so. "We are reliant on the member-states."
Indeed, he claimed, veterinary experts from all the member-states met regularly at the Standing Veterinary Committee and had every opportunity to raise doubts about practices in their fellow member-state. They did not do so, he said.
Mr MacSharry's former deputy chef de cabinet, Mr Patrick Hennessy, said a 1990 memo published yesterday by The Irish Times recording his unwillingness to spend money on BSE eradication only reflected his concern not to subsidise the British policy of slaughter of single animals rather than of herds, as other member-states had done.
Mr MacSharry also cited a 1993 World Health Organisation report which said that British action on BSE was "sufficient" for health needs.
Mr Alan Gillis (FG) asked what the Commission had done to eradicate BSE and to protect other member-states in the context of the export of cattle incubating the disease and contaminated feed.
Mr MacSharry said exports of live animals over six months were banned and agreement was reached on blocking the export of meat and bone meal from the UK.
Asked again about the revelations in yesterday's newspapers, Mr MacSharry suggested that the committee should consider whether it or Liberation was conducting the inquiry. "It's grand and right that the media who have the time to come here to listen to these very worthy deliberations report on them. I think they should report on what happens here and not on suggestions, rumour, innuendo, allegations, which don't stand up anywhere.
The former Luxembourg agriculture commissioner, Mr Rene Steichen, who succeeded Mr MacSharry in 1993, also firmly rejected the suggestion that there was an internal ban on meetings in the Commission on BSE. He had found no evidence of such, he said.
He acknowledged and defended a letter from Mr Legras to the German authorities in which he had complained that German scientists, having participated in Union decisions, were calling them into question later publicly.
