FMD - UPDATE 7 

Dr. Richard North PhD. [UKIP]
17 April 2001 

Who is in charge?

As the foot-and-mouth situation descends from the obscene to the surreal, a very real question beginning to emerge: "who is in charge"? Is it Tony Blair and his COBRA committee, is it Nick Brown, the agriculture minister, or is it the invisible Jim Scudamore, the chief veterinary officer. Is it the NFU or the EU? 

It is in the answer to these questions that lies the explanation for much of the total chaos we have been experiencing, for the answer is "all of the above" and "none of the above". The very thing which is needed in a crisis situation - clear, decisive leadership - simply does not exist. 

The fact of this situation is that there is no single person or organisation with total control, or responsibility for managing the epidemic. Powers are shared, responsibilities are diffuse and there is no clear chain of command. 

EU Involvement 

At the heart of the confusion over powers and responsibilities is the European Union. To an extent that has not been fully appreciated or acknowledged, the whole of the UK's response to the crisis is dictated by EU legislation - Council Directive 85/511/EEC (as amended). Mr Blair might give the press conferences, pose in front of Army situation maps and hold crisis committees, but the UK is not a free agent. It is bound by the detail of this directive, obliged under community law to follow it to the letter. 

However, the extent of EU involvement by no means ends with the Directive. EU institutions also take a hand in the day-to-day management of the epidemic. The executive authority here is the Commission which, in dictating the conduct of the response, has issued a number of Commission Decisions (starting with 2001/172/EC). These decisions, reviewed at virtually weekly intervals, set out in minute details exactly what is expected of the UK government. 

But behind the Commission is a shadowy organisation known as the Standing Veterinary Committee (SVC). The SVC is one of the EU's nine "regulatory committees", set up under Council Decision 68/361/EEC to "carry out the duties devolving upon it under the instruments adopted by the Council in the veterinary field". 

Its relationship with the Commission is simple. While the Commission makes the decisions, it can only to so on the basis of an opinion of the Standing Veterinary Committee, and cannot deliver any decision unless it is agreed by the SVC. In other words, the SVC actually approves the text of Commission decisions - in effect, it runs the show. 

As to the composition of the SVC, its membership is made up of the chief veterinary officers (or their equivalents) from the 15 member states of the EU. One member is Jim Scudamore, the British chief veterinary officer. 

By an odd quirk of the EU system, therefore, Scudamore wears two hats. On the one hand, he is a British civil servant, where his role is to implement the policy determined by his minister. But, on the other hand, as a member of the SVC, he is partly responsible for telling his minister what to do. Depending on which hat he wears, therefore, Scudamore is either servant or master. He judges the adequacy of British action, formulates policy and then goes home to implement it. 

Furthermore, as part of the SVC, Scudamore has an intensely political role. Member state representatives tend to vote on crucial issues according to their respective national interests, taking instructions from their governments as to which line to take. 

In common with other EU organisations, they vote by qualified majority. A total of 87 votes can be cast, with Germany, France, Italy and the UK each casting ten votes. Spain has eight votes, Belgium, Greece, Netherlands and Portugal each carry five, while Austria and Sweden have four each. Denmark, Ireland and Finland have three votes each and Luxembourg casts two. 

For a favourable opinion, 62 votes must be cast in favour, for there to be 
"no opinion" there must be fewer than 62 in favour and fewer than 62 against and, for an "unfavourable opinion", there must be 62 or more votes cast against. Nine countries, therefore, can carry a majority, over-ruling the UK or blocking a UK initiative. In dealing with this crisis, Britain, as a formerly sovereign nation, must defer to a group of veterinarians appointed by foreign nations. 

The vaccination initiative 

When it comes to vaccination policy, the EU has considerably complicated matters. From the outset, routine vaccination is prohibited by Directive 85/511/EEC (as amended by Directive 90/423/EEC) but permission for emergency vaccination may be granted by the Commission when the disease "…threatens to ecome extensive". However, in order for the Commission grant permission, it must consult with the SVC. 

This procedure was adopted when the UK applied for permission for emergency vaccination in Cumbria and Devon, resulting in Commission Decision 2001/257/EC which was promulgated on 30 March 2001. 

However, the permission was not unconditional. Rather, it was hedged with numerous restrictions on the movement of livestock and the marketing and treatment of meat and milk. These have given rise to fears that products and livestock within the affected areas will be regarded as second class. The small print also creates a trading environment where farmers will be forced to sell on a buyers' market. 

As one Cumbrian farmer put it, "If we vaccinate, and (Cumbria) become a vaccinated zone then when you compare how other countries run their vaccinated zones, all milk would have to be processed in Cumbria, all livestock slaughtered in Cumbria and either eaten or processed here. This means that we would be faced with taking whatever the buyer offered - permanent fire sale prices. So the options presented to farmers are effectively get slaughtered out now, take the money and get out of the industry, or spend the next two years going slowly and painfully bust". 

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the National Farmers' Union has sought written assurances from government that any losses arising from the implementation of a vaccination programme will be underwritten, with compensation payable. However, the government has not given those assurances. 

"Given that there is no trust or reliance in the government acting for farmers benefit", writes the Cumbria farmer, "the general feeling is that all that will happen with vaccination is that the government will vaccinate, regard the problem as solved and abandon farming in Cumbria, leaving it to rot". 

In fact, that is all the government can do. It cannot give the assurances wanted. Any compensation paid would be again be regarded under EU law as illegal state assistance. The EU casts a long shadow. 

Who runs Britain? 

With its current opposition to the use of emergency vaccination, confounding what appears to be the government's latest policy, one could be forgiven for believing that the NFU was in the driving seat, rather than the government, rasing the question of who runs Britain. For, without the support of farmers (or the NFU, which is not exactly the same thing), the government would have difficulty implementing its policy. 

But the conflict is entirely due to EU-driven inertia. It is the EU's SVC which has imposed the petty - and scientifically unsustainable - conditions on the use of vaccination. It is the EU which has created the situation where farmers who agree to vaccinate might sustain unrecoverable losses. And it is the EU which prevents the government underwriting those losses. Between the NFU and the EU, the government is between a rock and a hard place. If it satisfies the EU, it upsets the farmers. If it satisfies the farmers, it breaks EU law. 

Never has the dead hand of the EU been more pronounced. 

ends 

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