RESPONSE IN EUROPE:THE EUROPEAN Commission has called a meeting of food safety experts from Ireland and other affected EU states tomorrow to co-ordinate a response to the contamination of Irish pork products.
It will also continue to monitor the situation and provide regular updates to the public on the incident, the EU executive said yesterday. “The commission is closely following up this contamination incident and the actions taken to withdraw any potentially contaminated pork meat and pork meat products from the market ensuring consumer health protection,” the statement said.
It said a meeting would be held “to share information and to ensure a harmonised enforcement approach in the affected states” and “to ensure a high level of human health protection”.
A commission spokesman later said the meeting would take place tomorrow.
The commission regulates and administers the bloc’s food safety rules on behalf of its 27 member states, in co-ordination with national authorities. Officials from Ireland, France, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and other affected countries are likely to attend the meeting.
A spokesman for the commission said yesterday the initial response from the Government seemed to have been adequate because it had ordered the withdrawal of all pork products in a timely manner.
“Ireland is calling back all the pig meat from September 1st. This is good practice in managing the crisis,” said the official, who added that Dublin notified Brussels of the problem on Saturday.
A similar dioxin contamination crisis in poultry and egg products in Belgium in 1999 prompted the commission to tighten its food safety procedures.
In that case health inspectors reported a problem with dioxin contamination in January 1999 yet action was only taken by the government when the media revealed the contamination in May.
The contamination was eventually traced to oil from an oil-and-fat recycling company. The fats processed into animal feed contained oil used in coolant fluid.
Amid accusations of a cover-up by the authorities, two ministers resigned and the government led by prime minister Jean-Luc Dehaene lost the federal elections.
The scandal, which became known as the dioxine affair, caused considerable economic damage to the economy as many countries banned imports of Belgian products.
About 200 farms were quarantined and 60,000 pigs and several million chickens were slaughtered. Estimates of the cost of this crisis range from €625 million to €1 billion.
News of the Irish dioxin scare led most Belgian news broadcasts yesterday, with the public advised to check the source of any pork products they had bought. Under the headline “Pork contaminated with dioxin found in Ireland”, an article in Le Soir said the Belgian authorities were tracing pork products imported from Ireland.
It also noted that the Belgian authorities had not been informed about the dioxin contamination ahead of the announcement by the media.