A EURO MP today hit out at the British Government for failing to back a Yorkshire "feta" cheese maker.

The EU court was today meeting in Luxembourg to decide whether manufacturers outside Greece can call their cheese feta.

The cheese will have to be renamed after 2007 under an EU directive unless the case, brought by the Danish and German governments, succeeds.

Edward McMillan-Scott, the Yorkshire and Humber Conservative MEP, has attacked the British Government for failing to be there to challenge the Greeks, who insist that theirs can be the only feta.

A court ruling in favour of the Greeks would mean that Shepherds Purse dairy and sheep milk cheese company in Newsham, near Thirsk, will be forced to rebrand and remarket its popular Yorkshire Feta, sold in supermarkets throughout the country.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has said that while continuing to oppose the registration of feta as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), it would not appoint a Luxembourg lawyer to represent its position at oral hearings.

Mr McMillan-Scott said: "It is extraordinary that the British Government, which spends billions on farm subsidies, will not spend a few hundred pounds on sending a lawyer to defend a small but important producer."

A Defra spokesman said the British Government opposed Greek plans for protected food status when first mooted in 1996 and, along with the Danes and Germans, opposed it again in 2002 when it was discussed by the European commission.

In the event, the EU Commission agreed to register the name feta as an exclusively Greek product, arguing that the "organoleptic quality of the grasses on the Greek mountains" imparted a special flavour to their cheese.

Commissioners were persuaded by a 1,500-page report submitted by the Greeks, which included legal, historical, cultural, political, social, economic and scientific reasons for Greeks to own the feta name.

The Defra spokesman said: "But since then both Germany and Denmark have brought this court case against the commission to get it annulled. The UK is supporting that action.

"Germany and Denmark are covering all the arguments that the UK would advance, so it was decided that there was no sense in having a UK presence in court."

Judy Bell, founder of Shepherds Purse Cheeses, said: "We thought we had won the battle against bureaucracy back in 2003 and were delighted that we had the backing of EU agricultural commissioner Franz Fischler to fight our corner.

"We now discover that we are not being supported and this is a further blow to us as a small local producer.

"Yorkshire Feta is our second-best selling cheese and changing the branding on the product will be very expensive and could damage sales.

"It accounts for 15 per cent of our turnover.

"We are urging our Government to bring a case alongside the Danish and German governments to support our cause."

Updated: 10:52 Tuesday, February 15, 2005