Brussels, 24/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 24 January, the European Commission unveiled a raft of measures at EU level to improve the safety of the processing of animal feed following the scandal of the dioxin-contaminated eggs and pork from Germany.
EU Health Commissioner John Dalli said after a meeting of EU farm ministers that he would be working on several areas, like separating the production lines for industrial oils and food oils and making the issuing of certificates compulsory for factories producing fatty acids and oils. Controls will be stepped up on at-risk material and the obligation to publish positive dioxin tests should be extended to private testing labs, he added.
Dalli was less forthcoming about two other ideas suggested by Germany, namely the drawing up of a “positive list” at EU level of materials that can be used to make fatty acids for food use, and the idea of forcing producers of oils and fats to take out accident liability insurance.
Germany's farm minister, Ilse Aigner, announced a series of measures along these lines last week and wants the EU to follow suit.
John Dalli said: “There is no immediate health risk for consumers. In the majority of cases, the observed levels of dioxins in food were below the tolerance level laid down in EU legislation. And where the EU limits were exceeded, this was relatively moderate.”
Dalli is suggesting changes to the hygiene package to be submitted by EU member states in February at the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health. Agreement may be reached on the measures at the end of February or early March. The suggestions announced by Dalli are as follow:
1) The compulsory approval of establishments manufacturing, treating and marketing fats and fatty acids, to gain more control over such activities.
2) Units recycling fats for feed and food (oils used for frying that are turned into animal feed, for example) often also process engine oil and transformer oil, used for machinery. In the German case, the machine oils got into the human food supply chain and the same thing happened in the Belgian dioxin scandal 10 years ago. The Commission's idea is to ensure genuine separation and it asks two questions in this connection: “First, should we require that products for feed have to be manufactured, stored and transported in specifically dedicated plants and transporters? And second, should we strive for a system assuring the proper segregation of feed from products for technical use? This latter issue could be achieved more easily by measures concerning technical equipment, colouring or labelling.'
3) Monitoring dioxin levels (increasing the numbers of samples taken for testing) and a database at EFSA of dioxin contamination.
4) Extending to private laboratories the obligation to point out when they get positive results for dioxin contamination.
A dozen countries spoke at the Council meeting. Germany submitted a list of measures and a national action plan and called for some of these measures to be taken at EU level. The Commission has taken four of the measures on board. Italy called for better labelling (listing the origin of products) and traceability. Austria called for consumer protection measures to go further than those being planned by the Commission, but the Commission and most member states said that the current set-up works well because it was the existing early warning system that had uncovered the dioxin contamination in Germany. EU countries agreed, however, to correct the parts that had not worked - like the control system.
Many ministers stressed the importance of a harmonised EU response because if EU countries acted differently, that would rebound on non-EU countries.
Hungarian restrictions. To protect consumers in Hungary from the effects of dioxin poisoning, Hungary introduced restrictions at the end of last week on the import of live animals and fresh meat and meat products from Germany, but is expected to remove the restrictions, viewed by the European Commission as disproportionate. The Hungarian restrictions have led to reaction from non-EU countries like Russia, which is threatening to ban imports of German meat.
At the start of the year, Germany was rocked by a new food scandal, with the discovery of dioxin-contaminated eggs at first, followed by dioxin-contaminated pork. Dioxin is a highly toxic combustion residue. The contamination came from the mixing of industrial oils (containing dioxin) and animal feed. (L.C./transl.fl)