Brussels hopes that sending more EU food safety officials to Brazil could help prevent hormone beef illegally making its way across the Atlantic and onto European plates, as happened last year when Brazil’s control system meant to prevent hormone beef from being exported to the EU failed on audit.
However, the fact that EU citizens even know that banned hormone beef was consumed in the EU “at least partially shows that the system works”, according to one senior European Commission official who spoke with the Irish Farmers Journal last week.
“If European consumers don’t have trust in our systems, then we’ve nothing,” the spokesperson said. “We have the highest standards for food and safety in the world by any by measure.
“We’ve made the commitment to have more boots on the ground, not just on our own customs posts to make sure that we spot things in an even more detailed way, but also in cooperation with, notably, the Brazilians. “And so, it’s not a question of ‘do we trust, do we not trust’. It’s a question of making sure that we have enough structures in place that we can be sure, and if that’s the case, then hopefully we can maintain the trust of European consumers.”
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