European vets are threatening to ban imports of American meat in the latest international food safety dispute.

They are proposing to give the United States a six-month deadline to strengthen checks for drugs in cattle carcasses or face a ban.

A spokesman for the EU's Consumer Affairs Commissioner, Emma Bonino, explains the threat to American meat. (2'38")

The threat comes as business leaders in Britain called for the World Health Organisation to sort out the array of bans and counter-bans in the international meat market.

Last week restrictions were placed on European beef and lamb entering America.

In Europe Britain has banned imports of European beef, arguing anti-BSE controls in the rest of Europe falls below the safeguards in place in the UK.

The European vets say residual levels of hormones and antibiotics were slipping through safety checks in the United States.

Emma Bonino: Announced the planned American ban.

If ratified tens of millions of dollars worth of American exports could be affected.

In Britain, the Federation of Small Businesses said intervention by the WHO would stop the in-fighting over the BSE crisis.

The group's policy unit chairman, Brian Prime, said: "The manner in which the present crisis has been handled by the European Union and the UK is totally unsatisfactory.

"All this would be resolved if a non-partisan body such as the WHO ruled once and for all on the issue."

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