A month before EU expansion into Eastern Europe is set to take place, ten candidate countries are still showing signs of worrying deficiencies in their food health and safety practices. According to the consumer affairs spokesperson of the European Parliament’s social-democratic group, Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, this especially affects the prevention of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE): “In some places the risk constituted by animal waste is not being handled appropriately”.
This is the case in countries such as Hungary, Poland the Czech Republic, and Malta. While it is true that feeding cattle with animal-origin feed is forbidden, there are still doubts as to whether this is also applied to poultry and pigs”, the EU spokesperson said. Another concern is national food chain supervision, together with the control of external EU borders pushed further to the East.
According to Roth-Behrendt “the member-states’ inspectors are overwhelmed as it is with the 15 countries that currently form the EU”. The fact that this type of deficiency should persist shortly prior to adhesion is due to the lack of a consumer rights culture in these countries, and also because this issue has not been given priority in membership negotiations. According to official surveys, only 40% of the Polish population show an interest in consumer rights. Moreover, a transition period has been granted to some new member-state companies. Following adhesion, if they intend to sell their produce at a national level, they will be obliged to conform to EU regulations.