The UNION of new challenges to overcome “rip-off” of the food
Getty Images
New EU food quality testing must be severe enough to stop the manufacturers from the sale of certain brands with inferior ingredients in the ex-communist countries, a Euro-MP, shaping the new rules said.
The european Commission plans to collect data on a variety of foods, so that countries can compare the quality of the brand more easily.
“We have safety rules, but the quality is not defined in the legislation,” said Croatian MEP Biljana Borzan.
The quality of the brand varies too much in the EU, politicians, and consumers are saying.
Well-known brands of fish sticks, baby food and biscuits are among the foods in the center of a heated debate.
Food apartheid’
Last year, the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – known as the Visegrad Group – said their partners of the EU, it is “unacceptable that our consumers are treated differently and in a discriminatory manner”.
The Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, has even threatened to boycott imports https://sevendaynews.com/files/2018/04/18/of food products from some eu countries if the eu has not managed to tackle the “double quality” of the show.
Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, described the problem as “food apartheid” in the EU, likening it to the old racism in South Africa.
The food producers, however, argues that they will adjust their marks according to taste, and that is why the ingredients sometimes differ.
Read more on this topic:
Boycott threat over “rip-off” power of the EU
Ex-communist states complain of rip-off food in the EU
Juncker sees reform of the window of opportunity
Ms Borzan told the BBC that “the double quality of the food is really a serious political problem -, it shows that the EU single market is not fully function”.
He added: “the Change of packaging is not enough; our goal should be to change the quality of the product.”
Some brands have already standardized their ingredients, for all the markets of the EU, such as Germany, Hipp baby food and Bahlsen biscuits.New EU control
On Wednesday, the European Commission has said that it was the update of the EU, the Directive on Unfair Commercial Practices, to help prevent the bad quality of brands marketed in some countries.
EU Justice and Consumers Commissioner Vera Jourova said the Commission should also launch a new food-methods of test next month, so that the national authorities were not able to compare reliably the quality of the brand from one country to the other.
The plan is to determine a “reference product” for the 20 to 30 brands initially. The next year, the standards should be expanded to non-food products, such as washing powder.
In the framework of its “New Deal” for the Consumers”, the Commission said that the new legislation would “make explicit the fact that it can be illegal to market identical products in several EU countries, if their composition is significantly different.”
“The operators are free to market and sell products with a different composition, or characteristics, to adapt their products to local consumer preferences or by taking into account the need to respond to the different trends. The products under the same trade mark may, exceptionally, have different characteristics.
“However, a slightly different form of the composition identical to the products of the brand can be a source of concern when these products are marketed in a way that has the potential to mislead the consumer,” he said.