No presence of horsemeat has been found in 15 beef products available on the Maltese market, according to an EU report.

The report also found no traces of the use of phenylbutazone – an anti-inflammatory drug used as a horse painkiller – on any of the five samples of horsemeat that were destined for human consumption.

The 15 samples tested were taken from beef products available on the market, both local and imported. They did not include recent beef products that were withdrawn from the Maltese market for containing traces of horsemeat as those had been tested in other countries already.

The EU-wide testing for horsemeat DNA and phenylbutazone was requested by the European Commission in the wake of the horsemeat scandal.

Results revealed that fewer than five per cent of the products tested in all 27 countries had horse DNA and that about 0.5 per cent of the equine carcasses tested were found to be contaminated with the painkiller.

“Today’s findings have confirmed that this is a matter of food fraud and not of food safety.

“Restoring the trust and confidence of European consumers and trading partners in our food chain following this fraudulent labelling scandal is now of vital importance for the European economy given that the food sector is the largest single economic sector in the EU,” said European Health Commissioner Tonio Borg.

He said the commission would propose to strengthen the controls along the food chain in line with lessons learned.