Enlarge imageBRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union food safety experts agreed on Wednesday to lift a 10-year beef export ban imposed on Britain at the peak of the 1990s mad cow scare, an EU farm industry source said.
"They’ve just voted and it was unanimous," he told Reuters.
British beef exports to the European Union were halted in 1996 as brain-wasting Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), popularly known as mad cow disease, spread through the country.
Some 150 people also fell victim to the human form of BSE, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, after eating tainted meat.
The European Parliament now has 30 days to examine the experts’ decision which also applies to British exports of live cattle and calves to the rest of the 25-nation EU.
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While it cannot stop the ban being lifted, the EU assembly could exert political pressure on the European Commission, the EU executive, to withdraw its proposal.
But if all goes smoothly, as expected, British beef could start to return to EU supermarket shelves in late April or early May, meat industry officials say.
