STRASBOURG, France - The European Commission will start legal proceedings within a month against four countries for failing to respect EU animal feed production rules, EU Food Safety Commissioner Emma Bonino said. Germany, France, Sweden and Spain were targetted in an initial report presented by Bonino on Tuesday to a new European Parliament committee monitoring steps to combat mad cow disease. The four countries were criticised in the report for not implementing rules requiring meat and bone meal to be processed at higher temperatures and for longer periods so as to eradicate the infectious agents of mad cowdisease, known medically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Infected meat and bone meal mixed into cattle and sheep feed is believed to be the main cause of the BSE epidemic which has killed more than 165,000 cattle, mostly British, over the past 10 years. A British government admission that BSE could be transmitted to humans, who ate infected beef, in the form of the deadly Creutzfeldt-Jakob-Disease (CJD) triggered panic across Europe and an EU ban on British beef exports. France has refused to apply the new meat and bone processing rules, which came into force on April 1, contesting their efficiency and legality. Germany, Sweden and Spain argue that livestock by-products used in food are not covered by the rules. The Commission's inspectors, who based their findings on data provided by EU member states, found no infringements in Britain and Luxembourg. The 20-member cross-party parliamentary committee, which was created in April, will check if the EU's executive fulfills promises to carry out reforms recommended by the Parliament. The Parliament has threatened to sack the entire Commission unless improvements are made by December.