Smuggling of meat-and-bone meal is an EU-wide problem
19.03.2007
foodwatch press release: Meat-and-bone meal smuggling scandal greater than suspected. foodwatch publishes latest data. EU Commission meets tomorrow, but German food minister Horst Seehofer has yet to take action.
foodwatch has discovered that the international smuggling of
meat-and-bone meal has greater dimensions than assumed beforehand and
is indeed an EU-wide problem. According to Eurostat, the EU's office
for statistics, more than 242,000 tonnes of animal meal were exported
to Non-EU-Countries. This is an increase of 150 percent compared to the
previous year (97,000 tonnes). Meat-and-bone meal was exported to
countries that banned imports of such meal after the European BSE ('mad
cow' disease) crisis. Some 51,000 tonnes of by-products were exported
to Vietnam (2005: 21,000 tonnes), and another 52,000 tonnes to
Indonesia (2005: 31,000 tonnes). "The unmonitored trading of animal
meal is a problem not only in Germany; illegal exports with the
complicity of German authorities have proven to be just the tip of the
iceberg," said Matthias Wolfschmidt, foodwatch’s veterinarian.
According to foodwatch, even though the EU dictates that bilateral
agreements for exporting meat-and-bone meal must be set up first, the
Commission does not have an overview of the trade with non-EU countries
in animal by-products. There is the real danger that animal meal
exported to these countries can be used in human food production and
thus returned to the European Union. The Commission will hold a special
meeting tomorrow to find out more from Member States on illegal exports
of meat-and-bone meal to Non-EU-Countries. The largest exporter, also
to Vietnam and Indonesia, is Spain, which exported 140,000 tonnes in
2006, nearly tripling exports from the previous year.
"The meat industry, including Vion, Europe’s largest meat group, has
no scruples about getting rid of its waste in poor countries, and it
even makes a profit," said Wolfschmidt. foodwatch is calling on Horst
Seehofer, Germany’s minister for food, agriculture and consumer
protection, to make use of Germany’s current presidency of the EU
Council of Ministers to see through applying the same stringent rules
to animal by-products that apply to transfer dangerous industrial
wastes. Exports should be permitted only to OECD countries.
At a press conference on 21 February 2007, foodwatch first revealed
that meat-and-bone meal had been illegally exported with the complicity
of German authorities. As a non-governmental organisation that protects
consumers’ rights, foodwatch initiated criminal proceedings against
rural district offices in Lower Saxony, as well as against SNP, a
subsidiary of VION, Gepro in the PHW group, and the Beckmann fertiliser
dealer. As a consequence, German authorities ended the exports and
admitted that animal meal had been illegally exported to 22 countries.
Anyone can support foodwatch's appeal to the politicians by
participating foodwatch's 'citizen in action' activity on the Internet.
More than 2,400 consumers have already joined the protest at
www.foodwatch.de against the unmonitored trading of animal by-products.
foodwatch published its findings in a report which is also available in
English on the Internet at www.foodwatch.de.
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