Last Thursday, the European Parliament, spearheaded by French MEP Agnes Le Brun from the European People’s Party, wrote a letter to Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner, Tonio Borg, calling for clearer meat origin labelling to be included in the Commission’s upcoming report regarding labelling for ready-made meals.

Although Borg has repeatedly reassured Parliament and member states that the report will discuss meat origin labelling in frozen meals and that the Commission will not make changes without first consulting their respective opinions, Le Brun warned the rest of Parliament that the report “is about to bury the possibility of mentioning the origin of meat in prepared dishes”.

This report will coincide with the timeline set by the Commission’s action plan in response to the horsemeat scandal that swept through the European Union early this year.

In mid-January, Irish food inspectors discovered traces of horsemeat in frozen beef burgers and, the following month, the UK revealed to the Commission that it had found 80-100 per cent horse DNA in frozen beef lasagna that had been sold by a UK corporation with French suppliers.

Subsequently, the Commission supported 4,144 tests that were conducted across the EU on processed products. The results revealed that five per cent of the tested products labelled as beef contained horse DNA. However, statistics were almost three times higher than the EU-wide average in France, home to the corporation that sparked the horsemeat scandal, reaching up to 13 per cent.

Thus, the Commission’s action plan addresses the issues of food fraud, testing programmes, horse passports, greater implementation and penalties for not adhering to the requirements and origin labelling.

Many MEPs want origin labelling of meat to cover every type of product, whether fresh or not

Aside from the upcoming report tackling the issue of origin labelling on ready-made meals containing meat, the action plan also demands that the implementation of origin labelling on fresh meat must begin this December while the conclusion that is reached by the Commission in its reports on origin labelling of processed foods must be implemented by December 2014.

Regulation 1169/2011, which is set to govern the labelling of food within the EU, beginning on December 13 of this year, changes the existing legislation on food labelling of processed goods, the origins of fresh meat from pigs, sheep, goats, and poultry and must highlight allergens among its list of ingredients. However, it does not discuss ready-made foods, the source of the scandal.

Although Parliament is in agreement with the Commission that the meat industry needs to be regulated more closely, it wants more. Many MEPs are calling for the requirements regarding the origin labelling of meat to be expanded to include every type of meat product, whether or not it is fresh.

The hope is that these measures will enable consumers to be better informed about the origin and contents of their meat while enhancing their understanding of how it got to their table. Likewise, the Parliament suggests that such guidelines would prevent a scandal such as the one that swept through Europe earlier this year from occurring again.

However, Borg believes that the horsemeat scandal would have still occurred whether or not more expansive legislation was in place because it was an issue of fraud rather than a shortcoming in the regulation of food labelling. He strongly supports introducing and enforcing more severe punishments for those who commit such fraud in meat production but believes that origin labelling is a different issue and should be kept entirely separate.

In response to suspicions that origin labelling in pre-prepared dishes will not be included in the anticipated report, Borg states that he is committed to addressing the issues head-on, further suggesting that the Parliament’s fears are unsubstantiated.

Since the co-decision procedure determines that this report will only be seen and debated by the Commission prior to its publication, members of Parliament are making their voices heard as they strive to represent the citizens of the EU who were directly affected by the scandal.

David Casa is a Nationalist MEP.

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