Foodstuff Quality under Investigation

Romania's Prime Minister wants a legislative framework to expose the companies using double standards in foodstuff quality.

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Roxana Vasile, 28.07.2017, 13:58

Perhaps Romania could find a way to put together laws enabling the authorities to expose those companies that see Romanians as second-class citizens, and to treat these companies accordingly, PM Mihai Tudose snapped, disgruntled with the double standards used by some foreign foodstuff producers. The Agriculture Minister Petre Daea had previously criticized something that many Romanians who traveled abroad had already noticed, namely the lower quality of the products sold in Romania as compared to the corresponding products sold in Western European countries. According to a recent report, out of 29 products analysed at the Institute for Hygiene and Veterinary Public Health, 9 were found to have such differences in terms of quality, including canned fish, bacon, ham and mortadella.

After Petre Daea said the European legislation did not allow him to make public the name of the respective producers, PM Mihai Tudose asked the Justice Minister Tudorel Toader to find a legal solution to help Romanians buy healthier foodstuffs.

Mihai Tudose: “There are no European regulations that enable us to do this. We may come up with a national law, and if the authorities cannot take these companies out of the market, we should at least make public the findings of our inquiries. We should put together a legislative framework enabling us to expose those companies that are scheming, so to say, and then let buyers decide for themselves. I don’t think these companies will have it easy after we make public the names of those who use double standards in Romania.”

A prospective legal solution, the Justice Minister explained, will be based on the principle of equal treatment for all consumers in the European Union. Other East European countries have also been facing similar problems. Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland have complained, in their turn, about double standards in terms of foodstuff quality, and officials from these countries have called on the EU not to allow multinational corporations to use lower quality ingredients for the cheaper markets that they supply.

On Thursday, the European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker agreed that inferior ingredients should not be used in supposedly identical products sold in Eastern Europe, and promised that the EU would do its best to put an end to such discrimination. The European Commission has already offered to finance food quality surveys in EU member countries.