BRITISH proposals to ban fur farms are worrying Denmark and Finland, the two biggest fur farming nations, which are expected to challenge it in the European Court.

Britain intends to ban its 13 remaining fur farms "as soon as it is practical" and ministers support the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill by Maria Eagle, Labour MP for Liverpool Garston, which has its report stage tomorrow. The Bill, which has the backing of Sir Paul McCartney, Prof David Bellamy and Sir Christopher Bonington, would pay owners compensation after a ban. It would not ban the wearing of fur or the world trade in pelts, 60 per cent of which is controlled from London.

As the Bill gets closer to becoming law, it is causing alarm in other fur farming countries in the EU, including Denmark, Holland, Finland and Sweden, together with Norway, which believe that there could be a knock-on effect on their own trade. Kalevi Hemila, the Finnish agriculture minister, received a report this week saying that there was substantial anger about the potential ban. He is to contact Nick Brown, the Minister of Agriculture.

Knud Vest, vice-chairman of the European Fur Breeders' Association, who farms near Copenhagen, said: "We will take Britain to the European Court. The way we treat animals is the best in the world. The problem in Britain is that there are very few farmers and you do not have a very strong association. So it is easy to kick them around."

Mr Vest and his wife, Lise, share their 500-acre farm with 2,600 caged mink. It does not conform to the picture of mink farms as the evil places painted by British animal welfare organisations. For one thing, the smell of the mink cages and their rations was wafted away by breeze from the nearby sea.

For another, there were no distressing characteristics of "stereotypical behaviour" - repetitive movements indicating misery or delinquency - the chewing of tails, or other forms of self-mutilation, cited as evidence of the mink's misery by the RSPCA. The habit is largely hereditary and most Danish farmers have removed it entirely by selective breeding.

Mrs Vest said: "People say fur farming is cruel because they don't know anything about it. I can tell you that, when our cow goes to the slaughterhouse, I am very sad. It has to stay at the slaughterhouse for two days before being killed. All animals know the smell of death and fear it but our mink don't smell it."

The mink are killed at eight months old in a box full of carbon dioxide wheeled around on a cart that is normally used to bring food. As they come out expecting to be fed, they are popped from their cages to the box, where they die in 20 seconds.

In what prides itself as one of the greenest countries in Europe, the Danish Ethical Council Concerning Animals, the Government's animal welfare advisers, independent scientists and the Danish equivalent of the RSPCA all disagree with the view of Ms Eagle and her supporters that farmed mink are wild animals or that their conditions are cruel. Fur farming is accepted in Denmark.

The Danish Fur Breeders' Association, which represents 3,000 fur farmers, has commissioned a legal opinion that indicates that a ban was almost certainly illegal under EU law. It said that the ban prevented trade in young mink for farming between Britain and other countries, which was illegal under Articles 30 and 36 of the Treaty of Rome, and was likely to have an indirect impact on the trade in skins from Denmark.

The ban goes beyond a European directive, known as 98/58, on the protection of farm animals, including animals kept for their fur. Any ban would have to be notified to the European Commission, at which time a complaint could be submitted.

Henning Jensen, secretary general of the Danish Fur Breeders' Association, said: "EU law says you can keep mink under certain conditions. The only way you can go beyond that is by finding scientific evidence to prove conditions are inadequate." He said the association was considering whether to launch a legal challenge through the British courts or by a complaint to the EU.

An EU source said Denmark might have grounds for a complaint under the EU directive on farm animals but that it was unlikely to succeed under the Treaty of Rome. Peter Gaemelke, president of the Danish Agricultural Council, equivalent of Britain's NFU, said: "We would be very anxious about the possibility of having a law which would delete the fur industry in Britain. It will just push the production somewhere else where there are lower standards."

A Ministry of Agriculture spokesman said the Government was satisfied that a national ban on fur farming was consistent with EU law. Fur farming has already been effectively banned in Austria, where one region said mink could be kept only in conditions similar to those in zoos with room for exercise, toys and water for swimming. Austria's only mink farmer moved over the border to Slovakia.