EP approved of food double standards bill

The European Parliament on Wednesday approved an agreement regarding measures against double standards in food quality within the European Union, the Hungarian ministry of agriculture said in a statement, saying that the Visegrad Group’s joint lobbying had been successful.

The bill qualifies selling products containing different ingredients or having different characteristics under the same name in different countries as misleading customers, the ministry said.

Under the new regulation, customers must be informed of differences in products even if the reasons for those differences are legitimate, such as local regulations or that certain ingredients are not accessible in that particular country, it added.

In March 2017, Hungarian food authority Nébih tested 68 comparable Hungarian and Austrian products, 18 of which showed minor differences. Read more here.

A 2018 European Commission review of 64 products found 20 products with quality discrepancies between the products sold in eastern and western Europe.

In December, the review was expanded to involve 100 products from 19 countries.

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Source: MTI