Czech Republic threatens Polish food import ban

Photo - wikipedia

Miroslav Toman spoke with his Polish counterpart Stanislaw Kalemba at the 40th Agrokomplex agricultural and food trade fair, which closed yesterday in Nitra, Slovakia.

“If serious violations of [the] safety and quality of imported food products repeat, I am ready to initiate talks in Brussels about halting food imports to the Czech Republic until binding and effective corrective measures are taken,” Toman said, as cited by the Prague Daily Monitor.

The Czech Republic first threatened to apply for EU intervention regarding Polish products in April 2012, after industrial salt was discovered in Polish ham.

This February, during the European horse meat scandal, Czech authorities found horse meat in beef burgers imported from Poland.

Dana Vecerova, a spokesperson for the Czech Republic's ministry of agriculture has stressed that the potential on ban imports of food products would only pertain to specific companies.

The ministry has claimed that Poland has not been forthcoming on providing information concerning particular food products.

As regards the horse meat scandal, an EC-commissioned survey that checked beef samples across the EU found horse DNA was present in 3.9 percent of Polish samples, which was lower than the EU average of 4.66 percent.

Last week, Russian authorities announced that checks on Polish pork products were being stepped up after Spanish products that had not been provided with permits were discovered in a consignment from Poland at the Belarusian border. (nh)