Markets outside the EU should lift their "unnecessary and unjustified restrictions" on importing meat and dairy products, the EU Commissioner for Food Safety, Mr David Byrne, said yesterday.
He said the Commission had worked hard to convince countries outside the EU, such as the US and Japan, that exports from the Community were safe and not a risk despite the foot-and-mouth crisis.
"We are adopting a regionalised approach, where possible, to any new outbreaks. This is designed to allow trade to continue," with safeguards in place, Mr Byrne told the European Parliament. He confirmed that restrictions applying to the Republic due to foot-and-mouth would continue until April 19th.
Mr Byrne deemed the vaccination of animals in the Netherlands "entirely appropriate". This "suppressive vaccination" involved destruction of animals.
However, vaccination in Britain was more complex. Only cattle in Devon and Cumbria would be vaccinated, and not necessarily killed.
Mr Byrne said he believed EU strategies to control the disease were not failing. Eradication continued to be the preferred course of action.
But the Labour MEP, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, said the option of vaccination had to be kept open in the interests of the wider community, to ensure restrictions imposed did not have a large impact on areas such as tourism.
The Fine Gael MEP, Ms Avril Doyle, said: "A policy of strategic ring vaccination may be appropriate in certain circumstances, even though we still cannot distinguish commercially between infective antibodies and vaccinated animals".
The Green Party MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, urged the EU to allow member-states to carry out emergency vaccination programmes without the obligation to cull the animals.