Europe’s Leaders Support Britain in Beef Crisis

Leaders from 15 of Europe’s richest nations launched a historic constitutional convention Friday to deepen their union and prepare it for expansion, but they were quickly overwhelmed by an immediate crisis: the British beef panic.

Between ringing statements about Europe’s rendezvous with the 21st century, leaders found time to rally behind British Prime Minister John Major, pledging both new measures to ease consumer fears and money to compensate Britain’s cattle farmers, at least in part, for a multibillion-dollar beef market that effectively vanished overnight.

“We recognize there will be major measures in financial terms,” said Jacques Santer, president of the European Union’s Executive Commission.

He indicated that an announcement of the scale of support, in addition to details of other steps to revive consumer confidence, will likely come Monday at an emergency meeting of the union’s 15 agricultural ministers.

At a news conference, Major confirmed reports that his government is considering the slaughter of 700,000 older cattle as one element of a package of measures.

“We’re looking at a range of options, including that,” Major said.

The moves came as EU leaders responded to one of the biggest consumer panics ever experienced in the industrialized world, one ignited by a report made public last week in Britain that a degenerative brain sickness in cattle, commonly known as “mad cow disease,” may possibly be passed to humans who eat disease-contaminated beef.

Britain has reported more than 160,000 cases of affected cows in the past decade, a figure greater than in the rest of the world combined.

The scare came despite the lack of conclusive proof of the link to humans.

In part, the broad support for Major’s call for help was an indication that the crisis is no longer contained in Britain but is spreading through Europe. Farmers in Germany and Ireland have complained that demand for beef has dropped sharply, and in Luxembourg, sales of beef products reportedly declined 40% during the past week. In Britain, they have plummeted 90%.

“In unison, the 15 said it’s a European problem that must be financed by Europe,” French President Jacques Chirac said. “When there’s a fire in the house, you don’t save the water for doing the dishes.”

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Although hardly intended, the beef crisis may have a positive effect on the convention, called the Inter-Governmental Conference.

The scare has riveted public attention in Europe on the opening of the yearlong conference, heightening its public profile and going at least some way toward achieving one of its key goals: bringing the European Union closer to individual citizens and projecting an image that it deals with issues important to them.

While the conference is expected to grapple with a series of issues that could alter the shape of the EU, and with it the political map of the Continent, an opinion poll last week showed that barely one in five Europeans knows about it.

Some observers suggested that the unequivocal support for Major could eventually soften Britain’s opposition to many of the initiatives seen as vital to reform and could strengthen the union as it prepares for a new round of expansion.

“Perhaps it will teach some people in Britain that there’s value in solidarity,” a German official said.

On Friday, however, there were few signs of such shifts.

Although they united to confront the beef crisis, the EU governments are expected to clash frequently during the course of the conference as they struggle to reconcile their differing visions of Europe.

While leaders such as German Chancellor Helmut Kohl talked of a tight political and economic union, Major seemed intent on fending off moves toward further integration.

Although these differences constitute future conference battlegrounds, the leaders rejected pessimistic assessments that they will fail to agree on a path forward.

“I have no understanding for this pessimistic talk,” Kohl told reporters. “You can’t wash away three centuries of European history in one conference.”

* CALIFORNIA IMPACT

State’s beef industry is not likely to benefit from scare. D1