Belgium accuses Netherlands of tainted eggs cover-up
BRUSSELS: Belgium accused the Netherlands on Wednesday of failing to inform it that eggs were tainted with insecticide despite knowing about the problem since last November, as Europe’s latest food safety scandal deepened.
Newly appointed Agriculture Minister Denis Ducarme told a parliamentary hearing that Belgian’s food safety agency obtained an internal Dutch document that “reports the observation of the presence of fipronil in Dutch eggs at the end of November 2016.”
“When a country like the Netherlands, one of the world’s biggest exporters of eggs, does not pass on this kind of information, that is a real problem,” said Ducarme, adding he has demanded an explanation from his Dutch colleagues. There was no immediate response from the Dutch government.
The European Commission, which oversees the 28-nation European Union’s food safety alert system, refused to comment on if and when it was told about the reported Dutch finding.
“The hearing is still ongoing, so we will not have a running commentary on everything that is being said or presented at that meeting,” spokesman Daniel Rosario told reporters.
The Belgian hearing was called in response to an admission by officials at the weekend that they too knew about fipronil in eggs back in June, but kept it secret for nearly two months because of a investigation.
The insecticide scandal only became public on August 1 when authorities in the Netherlands ordered parallel criminal fraud eggs pulled from supermarket shelves and urged shoppers to throw theirs away.
Contaminated eggs have since been discovered in Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and France, with several supermarkets pulling millions of eggs off the shelves.
Fipronil is commonly used in veterinary products to get rid of fleas, lice and ticks but it is banned by the EU from being used to treat animals destined for human consumption, such as chickens.
In large quantities, the insecticide is considered by the World Health Organisation to be “moderately hazardous” and can have dangerous effects on people’s kidneys, liver and thyroid glands.