Brussels, 11/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission will bring forward a report at the end of October setting out a number of options for indicating the origin of the meat in prepared dishes. The Commission made this announcement on Thursday 10 October, with rumours circulating that it was about to abandon plans to improve the traceability of meat through labelling stating the origin.
Following the large-scale horse-meat fraud in Europe, the Commission said that it would shortly present a report on options for specifying the origin of the meats used in processed foods and decide whether a legislative proposal was the best course of action.
In this report, the Commission will not make a formal proposal but will set out a number of options, including extending, either on a voluntary of compulsory basis, indicating where the meat in prepared meals comes from, said Frederic Vincent, spokesperson for Health Commissioner Tonio Borg.
“The Commission is ruling nothing out and is not coming to any decision. This report provides information on the feasibility on the various options for the ministers of the 28 EU member states and members of the European Parliament, whose task it will be to decide”, he stated.
The Brittany Region Pork Committee (West France) spoke in an email to MEPs of information that “the Commission is preparing not to bring forward any legislative proposals is there is no intervention before the end of the internal consultation process on Friday 11 October”. “The Commission appears to be moving towards no requirement to state on labelling where meats used in prepared meals and processed meats comes from, not even on a voluntary basis!”, says the Sniv-Sncp, which represents the slaughter and cutting sector in France, in a press release.
“It would seem that, to justify their course of action, the European Commission is claiming that European consumers are more concerned by the price than by where their meat comes from”, said MEP Agnes Le Brun (EPP, France), adding to the debate (our translation throughout).
France has called on the European Union to do more to improve traceability and transparency on the origin of meat in the EU. Several countries, during a ministerial debate, expressed reservations over the effectiveness of such a move, however. These countries include Denmark, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom, which, like Ireland, was deeply involved in the horse-meat scandal.
Since the start of this scandal, Borg has consistently said that it is not a food security issue but one of fraud. (LC/transl.fl)