UK's diplomatic offensive over beef ban launched
UK's diplomatic offensive over beef ban launched
LONDON (Reuter): Britain launched a diplomatic offensive yesterday to explain to its perplexed European partners London's new get-tough strategy aimed at getting a crippling ban on British beef exports lifted.
Senior officials said ministers would fan out to European capitals in the days and weeks ahead to spell out why Prime Minister John Major felt the need on Tuesday to threaten to paralyze European Union business unless the beef ban was ended.
In contrast to Tuesday's iron fist approach, Major held a 10- minute telephone call with European Commission President Jacques Santer which the prime minister's spokesman described as friendly and constructive.
Officials said Major believed a lifting of the ban on beef by- products such as semen and tallow would not be enough. He wanted a clear idea of how and when the wider ban would be lifted.
As well as going on the diplomatic offensive, Major was putting the finishing touches yesterday to a new ad-hoc committee of senior ministers to coordinate his battle plan.
"We are in a new situation and new mechanisms are required," a spokesman said of what the media labeled a "beef war cabinet".
Major's dramatic statement to parliament produced a flood of approving headlines from right-wing newspapers that have pilloried him for being indecisive, especially over Europe.
The Daily Mail, under the headline "Major goes to war at last", said Europe faced chaos as Britain got tough after two months of dithering over the ban, which was imposed on March 27 because of fears over a new human strain of mad cow disease.
"Major shows bulls at last," the Sun tabloid said. "He tells EU: It's war." The Daily Express portrayed Major against a background of Britain's Union Jack flag with the headline: "Major speaks for Britain".
But comments by some leading European politicians and officials suggested that Major would have his work cut out to convince them that his policy of non-cooperation would pay off.
"In the end I don't think he will go through with his threat," newly-appointed Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini told La Republica newspaper. "But these problems can't be resolved by strong-armed tactics or blackmail.".
Anti-Brussels "Euro-skeptics" in the ruling Conservative party hailed Major's new stance as a victory for their lobbying, and even some staunch pro-Europeans conceded that Major had little choice after EU vets refused on Monday to ease the ban.
"I think it's the right approach and I was involved in putting it together...We have really got to bring home to other Europeans that a greater sense of urgency is required," finance minister Kenneth Clarke told BBC radio.
Clarke is the leading pro-European in the cabinet and Major crucially won his backing for the new strategy at a meeting on Tuesday.
Major's tactics have plunged Britain arguably into its deepest European crisis since it joined Europe in 1973 and could wreak havoc with the decision-making of the 15-nation bloc.
But if Major pulls off his gamble, some papers speculated it could be so popular among Conservatives and voters at large that he might be tempted to wrap himself in the flag and bring forward a general election he need not hold for another year.