The dispute over British beef in France is escalating alarmingly, posing a tricky challenge to the new president of the European Commission, Mr Romano Prodi. When EU scientists report tomorrow on the matter, the Commission will have to decide whether to take their advice and if necessary prosecute the French government. It has refused to accept an earlier decision that the ban on the export of British beef should now be lifted. Should the scientists find in favour of the French argument that the case for lifting the ban is not yet made because BSE is still not under control in Britain, opinion there would inevitably become more hostile towards Brussels - not least because of justifiable anger over reports that French animal foodstuffs manufacturers are still using human sewage as a source of protein.
It will be up to Mr Prodi and his colleagues - prominent among them the new Irish commissioner with responsibility for food safety, Mr David Byrne - to head off a possible trade war. All sorts of unpleasant xenophobic stereotyping is associated with this dispute. Subliminally, it is driven in Britain by a suggestion that, because the French have behaved hypocritically on this issue and the Commission will not tackle them, the whole European enterprise is exposed for the disaster Euro-sceptics daily claim it is. Likewise, the British government's failure to ban French imports, suspected of having been fed on doubtful foodstuffs, is seized on by the Conservatives as evidence of its spinelessness vis-a-vis Brussels - despite scientific advice that this food is safe to eat.
In France, old suspicions of Anglo-Saxon commercial advantage and worship of the profit motive have been resurrected, along with understandable anger over tabloid campaigns of hostility and consumer boycotts of French goods. There is an issue of national pride involved for a government which has only recently appointed a food agency and feels obliged to accept its advice. Last night's direct action by French farmers recalls similar direct action techniques by lorry drivers which very quickly stopped commerce in its tracks.
Two lessons must be drawn. The first concerns the single European market and the necessity for supranational regulation of such an internationalised trade; the second concerns the vital importance of independent and reliable scientific advice in reaching decisions about food safety. They are clearly interlinked.
Mr Prodi was far-seeing when he said, shortly after his appointment, that food-safety issues would tend to dominate the EU's business to an unexpected degree and that it is essential to see consumer confidence restored. Such are the competitive pressures on an intensely industrialised sector that a commensurate level of regulation is required to supervise it. The Commission is preparing a white paper on a food safety agency with powers to regulate the single market in food which it is hoped will resolve similar conflicts in future years.
That will come too late to settle this Franco-British row. But in anticipation of a more rational approach, Mr Prodi would be well advised to intervene directly with the British and French governments so as to find a formula to calm it down. It is surely not in the interests of either government to preside over a dispute which could undo the entente they have developed over European defence and security policy following their agreement in St Malo last year.