Food scare prompts call for EU checks

Date: 10/06/1999

By Simon Taylor

EU FOOD safety inspectors look set to win the right to inspect animal feed plants across the Union in the wake of Belgium's biggest-ever food scare.

Acting Consumer Affairs Commissioner Emma Bonino said last week that Commission inspectors should have the right to ensure that correct procedures were being followed in animal feed plants.

In the wake of the BSE crisis, a special team of 100 animal health and food safety inspectors was created to ensure that safety rules were being complied with.

But while investigators can swoop on farms, abattoirs and food manufacturers' premises, they do not currently have the right to visit feed plants. Officials are confident that the Belgian scare will prompt member states to support calls for feed plants to be brought within the scope of the rules. They now believe the plan could be approved by member states and the European Parliament by the end of this year.

France has gone even further by demanding that a powerful EU agency be set up to take over responsibility for food safety from member states. Paris has also called for a total ban on feeding animal remains to other animals.

Belgian officials are still investigating the source of the cancer-inducing chemical dioxin which contaminated animal feed sold to farms across the north of the country. EU vets last week ordered the Belgian authorities to trace and destroy all poultry, eggs, beef, pork and butter from farms which used the contaminated feed. They later introduced a ban on exports of all the products involved.

The Commission is now intensifying pressure on Belgium to withdraw suspect dairy products which may also have been contaminated. The Belgian authorities have so far refused to extend the recall of suspect eggs, chicken, pork, beef and butter to other dairy products such as fresh milk, cream and yoghurt.

Belgium's Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene has insisted that milk is a "safe" product because the quality is assured by special controls.

The Commission said this week that it reserved the right to take legal action against Belgium for failing to notify it earlier about the risk from contaminated feed.

Meanwhile, talks are underway with the US over the scare after Washington announced that it was banning imports of poultry and pork products from all EU countries, at an estimated cost to Union exporters of €242 million. A raft of other countries from Hong Kong to Algeria have also introduced bans on imports of Belgian products.

EU officials said this week that they hope to persuade Washington to narrow the scope of its ban quickly, by providing the information the US needed to end the blanket restriction on all Union pork and poultry products.

EU food safety inspectors look set to win the right to inspect animal feed plants across the Union in the wake of the food scare in Belgium.