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European farmers said it would be “scandalous” to give more beef from Mercosur countries to European consumers.
As the EU prepares to step up its offer to the Latin American trade bloc Mercosur, Copa and Cogeca denounced the EU move to improve the beef offer, warning it jeopardises public health and climate change objectives.
Chairman of Copa-Cogeca’s beef working party Jean-Pierre Fleury said: “The EU has already put a too generous offer on beef in its market access offer to Mercosur and it is now considering raising this offer to include higher quantities of beef.
“It is scandalous to give European consumers more beef from these countries when the safety standards are not equivalent.
“Eighty-six percent of our beef imports already come from these countries which do not meet the same quality or traceability standards as us.”
Antiobiotic residues and fraud
He warned that the potential increase in beef exports from Brazil to the EU is not good news if EU consumers do not want to be exposed to antibiotic residues which are used in these countries and banned in the EU.
“Since the microbiological tests have been reinstated, 22 lots of beef from Brazil were seized recently at borders for failing to comply with EU sanitary requirements. The recent food fraud there involved falsification of export certificates for 10 years or more.”
Copa-Cogeca has called on the EU Commission to improve and broaden the scope of the audits and to publish all information relating to the beef sector which is collected during the next mission to Brazil.
“MEPs must be included in this mission,” added Fleury.
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