Brussels, 28/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - The scandal involving horsemeat sold as beef in 13 member states has involved discovery after discovery of the fraud but on Thursday 28 February, it stretched beyond the EU's borders for the first time, when it reached Russia. Members of the European Parliament's environment committee criticised the shortcomings of member states that failed to apply EU legislation on food safety and the absence of sufficiently harsh penalties to deter unscrupulous operators and past masters in this massive labelling fraud. MEPs gave their views during a special ENVI committee meeting that focused exclusively on a debate with Tonio Borg, European Commissioner for Consumer Policy. MEPs were pleased with the Borg's response on the question of sanctions with the announcement of a Commission initiative.
Matthias Groote (S&D, Germany) began the debate and stated that “we are facing a crisis of confidence. Every day brings its news with which the impact and extent of the labelling problem can be assessed”.
Borg repeated his claim that the scandal was not “a problem to do with food safety” and appealed for them not to lose sight of things: “We need to put things in perspective. We have one of the best food safety systems in the world. This does not, however, mean that we will never have problems”.
He pointed out once again that controls were the preserve of member states and that the campaign for coordinated controls (DNA tests on meat-based ready-made meals, as well as tests for identifying phenylbutazone residues in horsemeat) officially started on 1 March (this is already being implemented in some member states) would allow them to see things more clearly. The results will be published in April.
Linda McAvan, the spokeswoman for the S&D group on food safety asserted that the Commission appeared to be satisfied with the food safety system in the EU because of the simple fact that fraud was detected in a random test. She said, however, that the responsibility of the Commission is to ensure that all member states comply with the legislation. She affirmed that they needed to know how many inspections were being carried out by the national authorities, what the rules were for these inspections and whether, for example, these inspections had been announced. The MEP said that they needed to keep a register of all the results from the inspections and called for strengthening the inspections by making them more systematic and introducing sanctions that would provide more of a deterrent. Corinne Lepage (ALDE, France) further drove home this message by stating that “the best legislation in the world is pointless if there are no inspections. What we have is virtual legislation but what the consumers want is for this legislation to be effective”.
The Commissioner acknowledged that the trust of the public had been seriously shaken and that the scandal illustrated the importance of appropriate controls and dissuasive sanctions. He announced a Commission proposal that would require all member states to introduce financial penalties for food fraud, so that this kind of crime did not pay. He explained that “to increase deterrence, the Commission will call on member states to ratchet up financial penalties (when cases of deliberate violation of the rules on the food chain have been identified) to a level that compensates for the financial advantage that these operators have attempted to obtain by breaching legislation”.
Richard Seeber (EPP, Germany) asked whether the labelling rules of the country of origin should be extended to all processed products containing meat, as sought by the parliament. The Commissioner confirmed that an impact study was being carried out, with results due to be published after the summer. He added that this did not, in fact, have anything to do with the current scandal because this fraud focused on animal derivatives present in the product itself.
Tonio Borg also indicated that the Commission was preparing a new legislative package on animal health, plant safety and official inspections, a proposal that had been “in the pipeline” much earlier than the current crisis of confidence, he was keen to point out. (AN/transl.fl)