WRITTEN QUESTION E-3615/01

by Béatrice Patrie (PSE) to the Commission

(8 January 2002)

Subject: Specified risk material and prevention of BSE

Information from several sources suggests that the Commission is planning to amend its Decision of 14 March 2001 (2001/233/EC(1)) on mechanically recovered meat and bovine vertebral column.

The purpose of the amendment is said to be to:

- raise the age above which vertebral column is removed from 12 to 30 months;

- ban the removal of vertebral column on butchers' premises in the case of animals over 30 months.

Is this information correct? If so, what scientific arguments are there to justify such a decision with regard to public health? Should this matter not be referred to the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), with a request that it carry out an assessment?

More particularly, what justification is there for the proposed ban when butchers and prepared meat product producers wishing to receive bovine carcasses with the vertebral column still in them undertake to comply with specifications and are subject to monitoring by independent bodies in accordance with Standard 45011, in addition to the inspections carried out by the competent administrations?

Might this measure, which signals the end of the small-scale meat-cutting trade, not cause significant harm to the non-industrial butchery sector, which comprises 150 000 businesses and employs more than one million people in Europe?

Might this decision not also have the effect of destabilising the specialist meat rearing sector, which enhances the value of its best animals by marketing them through small-scale butchers so as to ensure the highest satisfaction on the part of consumers, in spite of successive crises?

(1) OJ L 84, 23.3.2001, p. 59.

Answer given by Mr Byrne on behalf of the Commission

(8 February 2002)

The Commission has been discussing with Member States a proposal to amend the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 999/2001 of the Parliament and Council of 22 May 2001 laying down rules for the prevention, control and eradication of certain transmissible spongiform encephalopathies(1) dealing with the removal of bovine vertebral column as a specified risk material during the transitional period, as formerly dealt with by Commission Decision 2000/418/EC of 29 June 2000 regulating the use of material presenting risks as regards transmissible spongiform encephalopathies and amending Decision 94/474/EC(2). Such a review of the age applying to removal of specified risk material is already provided for in the above-mentioned Regulation.

The Commission raised for discussion with the veterinary experts in the Member States the age limit for removal of vertebral column and also the place of removal of vertebral column. The latter part of the proposal was aimed at resolving numerous difficulties in the control of such removal at butcher-shop level, as reported in a number of reports of the Food and Veterinary Office and by a number of Member States. After extensive discussion, the Commission has now decided to refer the question of whether the age for removal of vertebral column should be reviewed to the Scientific Steering Committee. It is also proposing to introduce stricter rules to control the removal of vertebral column at butcher-shop level.

(1) OJ L 147, 31.5.2001.

(2) OJ L 158, 30.6.2000.