Scant progress made in EU horsemeat regulation
The European Commission could create amend to incorporate the worrying aspects to a greater extent than or less the sale of horsemeat, suggests Dr Joanna Swabe, European Union Director for Humane Society International.
The horsemeat scandal, it seems, is far from over. One solely needs to aspect at the recent example of horsemeat from Republic of Latvia inwards frozen meat pies sold inwards the United Kingdom to consider that horsemeat fraud is widespread.
Even inwards the legal horsemeat trade, things are non completely kosher. It has been 3 years since the European Union introduced strict novel requirements for the import of horsemeat from non-EU countries, yet meat from horses that should never receive got been allowed to endure slaughtered for export continues to be placed on the European Union market. The European Commission has failed to stalk this tide of horsemeat imports. The query is, when tin dismiss nosotros await the Commission to act?
No explicit link has yet been made betwixt these imports together with the horsemeat implicated inwards the recent fraud. However, for those of us working to protect horses, the discoveries of illicit horsemeat inwards beef burgers, lasagne and pies provides a missing puzzle piece: could this endure where then much of the horsemeat imported into the European Union is going?
Horsemeat is already lawfully together with routinely processed into inexpensive convenience foods inwards some parts of Europe without many consumers realising it (unless they read the little print). It is slowly to consider how unscrupulous operators have been able to wash horsemeat into the nutrient chain past times passing it off as beef. The rising of processed meat products explains, inwards part, the apparent surfeit of horsemeat inwards Europe, because close consumers are non clamouring to eat it.
Indeed, the European horsemeat manufacture has been inwards steady reject since the 1960s equally both culinary tastes together with cultural attitudes receive got gradually changed.
Even inwards French Republic together with Italy, traditional heartlands of Equus caballus slaughter and consumption, the release of horses killed has waned significantly. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation statistics present that inwards 1961, 333,000 and 283,000 horses were slaughtered inwards French Republic together with Italy, respectively. By 2011, the numbers had dropped to 15,500 together with 62,237.
Evidently, solely a minority of French together with Italian consumers are actually going out of their agency to regularly swallow Equus caballus flesh. H5N1 survey conducted by Ipsos MORI for Humane Society International inwards 2012 constitute that solely 50 percent of respondents inwards French Republic together with 58 pct inwards Italy believed that it was acceptable to eat horses. Moreover, close respondents said they never or only sometimes eat horsemeat, whilst a mere 3 pct of Italians and four pct of French claimed to eat it frequently.
The fact is, Europe’s declining horsemeat manufacture is supplemented by significant global imports. European Union import statistics present large quantities of horsemeat annually beingness imported from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, United Mexican States and Uruguay.
Even when horsemeat appears on the label of processed meat products alongside no question of nutrient fraud, without mandatory rootage labelling, European Union consumers still receive got no stance where that meat came from. Why does that matter? Because imported Equus caballus flesh that fails to run into European Union nutrient security standards poses a potentially serious wellness hazard.
The terminate of July marked 3 years since the European Union introduced stricter import requirements. Only imports of horsemeat from horses alongside a known lifetime medical handling history, together with whose records showed they satisfied veterinary medicine withdrawal periods, are supposed to endure allowed in. Yet measures taken past times export countries, to prevent veterinarian drug residues from entering the nutrient chain, are non gibe for purpose.
About xx pct of horsemeat consumed inwards the European Union comes from Canada and Mexico, but the bulk of that meat genuinely derives from US horses – none of which are raised for slaughter but are instead acquired from random sources.
This is worrying because inwards the US the utilisation of veterinarian drugs, such equally phenylbutazone, prohibited inwards the European Union for utilisation inwards food-producing animals, is widespread together with in that location is no mandatory lifetime veterinarian medical record-keeping.
Canada’s together with Mexico’s lack of compliance has been exposed multiple times by NGOs, journalists together with the European Commission’s Food together with Veterinary Office, including the work of so-called ‘kill buyers’ who purchase US horses at auction together with send them long distances over the edge to endure killed for food.
Since 2010, FVO audits receive got constitute Canada together with United Mexican States failing to ensure that all horsemeat meets European Union requirements.
In the aftermath of i of Europe’s biggest e'er nutrient scandals, the European Commission has consistently failed to deed to halt imports of horsemeat from third countries that create non run into the European Union nutrient security requirements. With consumer confidence at an all fourth dimension low, it is the Commission’s duty to ensure that meat non considered gibe for human consumption past times European Union standards no longer ends upward on European Union consumers’ plates.
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