BULGARIA JOINED THE PROTEST OVER THE DOUBLE STANDARDS OF FOODS IN EUROPE

Bulgaria's caretaker Agriculture and Food Minister Hristo Bozukov made a proposal for the establishment of a European body to monitor and ensure that the foods were produced according to the quality standards, so that there were no differences in the quality for food products of the same brand in Western and Eastern Europe.

Minister Hristo Bozukov, presented the position of the country at the Brussels food council meeting on 6th of March.

Bulgaria and 4 other European countries want a ban on products with poor quality. Tests carried out in the Czech Republic and Slovakia show that products sold under the same brand name were inferior in quality in the “new” EU member states, compared to the “old” member states.

Representatives of major multinational food companies have stated that there may be a difference in the foods, but it was done to meet the individual tastes of the people in different Eastern European countries.

Recent studies showed that many multinational food companies put inferior ingredients in branded products intended for sale in Eastern European countries. This triggered the reaction of the Visegrad Four leaders and many ordinary people, as well representatives of various institutions.

Foods under the same brand name are with lower quality for the Eastern European market, laboratory tests made in Slovakia showed.

According to the results, a meat product from one and the same brand contains different amount of fats and water depending on whether it was produced for the Western European market or for the Central or Eastern European one. At the same time, the ingredients are described in details on the label.

The countries from the Visegrad Four raised the matter at the 6th of March meeting of the EU's Agriculture Council in Brussels and called for changes to the EU legislation. Vĕra Jourová, the European Commissioner for Justice, called the practice of the major multinational food companies “misleading, intolerable and unfair” and promised to do everything possible to stop it.