Yahoo – AFP,
26 Sep 2017
Brussels (AFP) - The EU unveiled plans Tuesday to crack down on food makers selling poor quality versions of products including Coca-Cola, Nutella and fish fingers in different parts of the bloc, particularly in eastern Europe.
Fish finger fighting fund to aid EU food crackdown |
Brussels (AFP) - The EU unveiled plans Tuesday to crack down on food makers selling poor quality versions of products including Coca-Cola, Nutella and fish fingers in different parts of the bloc, particularly in eastern Europe.
Eastern
member countries have complained bitterly of "food apartheid" or
being treated as "Europe's garbage can" by manufacturers who use the
same label for everyday goods that are of far lower standards than in the west.
The
European Commission, the EU's executive arm and watchdog, will give member
states one million euros to help improve tests for comparing products to detect
differences in quality.
"These
products are presented in exactly the same packaging but for instance the
coffee contains less caffeine and more sugar, fish fingers contain less meat in
one country than another," EU Consumer Protection Commissioner Vera
Jourova told a news conference.
"So
when I say I take this issue very seriously I mean it," she added.
The plans
also include making sure EU states are fully aware of the way to enforce the
bloc's food rules.
The steps
unveiled on Tuesday came after European Commission President Jean-Claude
Juncker said in a keynote speech earlier this month that "there can be no
second class consumers" in the EU.
"Slovaks
do not deserve less fish in their fish fingers. Hungarians less meat in their
meals. Czechs less cacao in their chocolate. EU law outlaws such practices
already," Juncker said.
Jourova
held back from "naming and shaming" the products but said she was
waiting for evidence of cheating.
Asked which
EU country had the worst fish fingers, she added: "There was an alarmingly
low percentage of meat in my country, the Czech Republic, but it can be the
case also in some others."
In February
Hungary's food safety authority said many food products sold with identical
packaging were superior in neighbouring Austria.
Among a
list of discrepancies, the agency said the version of Nutella, the children's
favourite chocolate-and-hazelnut spread from Ferrero, appeared to be "less
creamy" than the Austrian version.
The aroma
of Coca-Cola was seemingly "less rich, less complex" in Hungary, the
agency said, while the flavour of Nestle's Nesquik cocoa powder was "more
harmonious and intense" in Austria.
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