Haider threatens government over BSE tests

"There certainly won't be a 50-50 solution between Vienna and the provinces," declared Haider in the magazine Format. As current chairman of the Conference of Governors of Austria's nine provinces, Haider will lead negotiations with Vienna on the BSE - bovine spongiform encephalopathy - crisis next week.

The former leader of the right-wing Freedom Party (FP) fiercely criticized the price of 1,500 schillings (102.5 dollars) for BSE tests per head of cattle, charged by the Austrian state veterinary institutes. He said that in Germany the price was only about one-third as high. "It's not on that a few institutes are getting additional pocket-money for themselves."

Officially-approved private laboratories should also be allowed to make the tests in Austria, as they were in Germany. Haider said his own province would hire a single firm to slaughter cattle aged over 30 months, on which BSE tests have been mandatory since January 1. This would be to remove the risk of a BSE case from the private slaughterhouses, and at the same time to allow Carinthia's farmers to send the necessary number of animals for slaughter, said Haider.

Observers in Carinthia pointed out on Thursday that most of the province's slaughterhouses are in any case no longer accepting cows aged over 30 months. Haider's threat of withholding funds could cause the government much concern. Its goal of a zero-deficit budget in 2002 can only be achieved if the provinces keep an agreement to hand over tens of billions of schillings.

(dpa)