Britain may have lost £5m (US$7.8m) of EU money this summer because the Department of the Environment, Food and the Regions was “overworked”.

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A spokeswoman admitted the error, adding it was due to an “administrative mistake.” The department missed a June deadline for filing a claim on a special EU financial package of €132m ($129.0m) to fight animal disease and was the only EU country not to get a penny.


Now DEFRA has written sheepishly to Brussels to ask if it can still have the money. The grant would have helped fight TSE (the family of diseases of which BSE is the  most infamous member), on which DEFRA is currently spending about £45m a year.

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