Lyell warns against beef `revenge'

The Attorney General, Sir Nicholas Lyell, warned the Government yesterday that Britain would be on weak legal ground if it took retaliatory action against Europe over the ban on beef exports.

Sir Nicholas advised Cabinet colleagues that counter-measures would risk a legal challenge in the European Court of Justice and undermine Britain's own case if it broke the law. However, despite his warning, ministers were refusing to rule out taking action.

The Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, attacked EU governments for the "positive absurdity" of banning British beef in the acknowledged absence of a threat to public health.

He steered clear of directly threatening retaliation in discussions with fellow ministers but later hinted that some form of reprisal might be the only option left to Britain.

"I have no doubt that if it is not satisfactorily resolved it would have wider implications for Britain's relations with the EU. No country could accept an indefinite comprehensive ban when it is not required for public health reasons and when the Commission's own agriculture commissioner confirms that.

"We want to see a very early agreed outcome which will involve the lifting of the ban. That is what ought to happen and it should happen in the near future. Of course, if it did not happen, inevitably other options would have to be looked at."

However, he took heart from sympathetic remarks made by both the EU Commission President, Jacques Santer, and the Italian Foreign minister, Susanna Agnelli, who chaired yesterday's talks in Luxembourg. Mr Santer said the Commission favoured an immediate removal of the ban on products containing beef derivatives - in particular, medicines or pharmaceuticals. Mrs Agnelli urged foreign ministers to influence their governments to take the Commission's lead.

Ministers are pinning their hopes on today's talks between Douglas Hogg, the Agriculture Minister, and Franz Fischler, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, to get the ban lifted. Mr Hogg will present plans for a selective cull of cattle in "the low tens of thousands".