Anger Flares in Europe as Scandal Over Meat Widens
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Version 0 of 1. PARIS — European officials on Monday threatened criminal investigations and other legal action following revelations that frozen foods made with horse meat, disguised as more expensive beef, had been sold to potentially millions of unwitting customers across the region. “It is already clear that we are dealing with a Europe-wide supply network,” Owen Paterson, the British environment secretary, told the British Parliament. “It is unacceptable that people have been deceived in this way through what appears to have been criminal activity in an attempt to defraud the consumer.” Mr. Paterson said that the British authorities were cooperating with Europol, the European law enforcement agency, and that he and ministers from other countries affected by the crisis would hold a meeting with the European Union’s health commissioner soon. He ruled out restrictions on imports of European meat into Britain, saying that such measures could be considered only if food safety issues were involved. “This appears to be an issue of fraud and mislabeling,” Mr. Paterson said. At a briefing in Paris after meeting with French meat producers, Agriculture Minister Stéphane Le Foll referred to a “serious betrayal” of consumers and called for “European level” discussions this week about how best to address the food-labeling scandal. Although France has said the meat originated from Romania, identifying exactly who was to blame for its getting into food products has proved elusive. At the same briefing in Paris, the French minister for consumer affairs, Benoît Hamon, said anti-fraud investigators had been sent to the offices of two French suppliers to Findus, a frozen-food conglomerate with multiple operations across Europe, whose “beef” lasagna was found to have contained, in some cases, as much as 100 percent horse meat. Describing the practices of a murky web of food suppliers and middlemen as “mafia-like,” Mr. Hamon said it was not yet clear whether the mislabeling was a result of negligence or deliberate fraud. Top officials in Bucharest, including the prime minister, rejected any allegations of wrongdoing by their country’s industry. Findus said last week that it had withdrawn its branded lasagna from distribution after Comigel, its French supplier, raised concerns about the type of meat used. The companies said that food safety was not at risk, but some supermarkets have also removed other Comigel products. French officials over the weekend identified Cogimel’s meat supplier as another French company, Spanghero, which conceded that it had bought the meat from a Romanian slaughterhouse, through traders based in Cyprus and the Netherlands. Spanghero, which is based in southwestern France, said it planned to file a criminal complaint against the supplier, which it did not identify. Romania exports €10 million to €12 million, or about $13.4 to $16 million, worth of horse meat a year, according to the newspaper Ziarul Financiar, which cited Agriculture Ministry data. But Prime Minister Victor Ponta told reporters in Bucharest on Monday that preliminary investigations of two slaughterhouses there had failed to yield any evidence of fraud. “From all the data we have at the moment, there is no breach of European rules committed by companies from Romania or on Romanian territory,” Reuters quoted Mr. Ponta as saying. “It is very clear that the French company did not have any direct contract with the Romanian company. It has yet to be established where the fraud was committed and who is responsible.” Meanwhile, one Romanian producer that processes horse meat, Carmolimp, called the French assertions against Romanian producers “shameful” and an “unprecedented attack” without merit. “If the horse meat left Romania, then it would have been only labeled as horse meat,” Olimpiu Soneriu, the director of Carmolimp, said in a statement. He added that horse meat and beef were easily differentiated by their texture. Also Monday, a spokeswoman for the Dutch food and safety authority said officials were investigating claims that a Dutch broker had been involved in the scandal. European Union officials insisted Monday that the scandal was a matter for member governments to investigate, adding that the bloc’s own food inspectors had not been deployed. A spokesman for the European Commission warned member states Monday that it was against E.U. rules to impose a unilateral ban on food imports, and stressed that the scandal had not yet raised any concerns about food safety. “It is just a labeling issue,” Frederic Vincent, a spokesman for health and consumer policy at the European Commission, told reporters at a regular briefing in Brussels. “As far as I know, the meat in question has not been contaminated in any way.” <em>Nicola Clark reported from Paris. Andrew Higgins contributed reporting from Brussels, and George Calin from Bucharest.</em> |