The European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection has adopted a law that would forbid sales of the same products of different quality in the European Union (EU), Croatian Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Biljana Borzan announced here on Friday.
“The official position of the European Parliament is that the different product quality in the east and west of the EU must be banned. This is the position to which we have arrived after years of persuasion and explaining,” Borzan said at a press conference in Zagreb, Croatian daily Vecernji list reported.
“I am delighted with such good results of difficult negotiations. This process has lasted for five years. It is challenging to push a law that nobody wants to happen except you and some of the members from Eastern European countries,” Borzan said.
The Croatian MEP initiated and financed a survey in Croatia that revealed a significant difference in the quality of apparently same products in Germany and Croatia.
In September 2018, Borzan and the director of Croatian Food Agency presented the results relieving that more than half of the tested products on the Croatian market are of lesser quality than in Germany. The results of the survey forced the leading food brand HiPP to withdraw some of its products from the Croatian market.
The new measure should mean the end of double quality products on eastern and western European markets. Companies that decided to ignore new ruling could be fined up to four percent of their annual turnover. In a couple of months, the first results of the European product quality survey should be known.
“It is possible that the law may be passed before that. This makes the whole issue even more important since first fines are about to be announced,” concluded Borzan, Xinhua reports.
(Photo: illustration)
