Dive Summary:
- After the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and police raided a meat firm in Aberystwyth and a slaughterhouse in West Yorkshire, UK Prime Minister David Cameron declared that anyone who knowingly sold horse meat as beef will face the "full intervention of the law."
- As officials from the UK, Irish Republic, France, Romania, Luxembourg, Sweden and Poland met in Brussels to consider what actions the European Union would take, Victor Ponta, the prime minister of Romania, where two meat suppliers are accused of selling horse meat across the continent, said that the crisis is "not Romanian or British or French, it's a European crisis because it affects the absolute right of European customers to trust the food."
- While horse meat is not a health risk and can legally be sold in the UK, there is no demand for it; all five licensed horse suppliers in the UK, who are currently being audited by the FSA, export their meat to Belgium, Italy and France.
From the article:
"... Mr Paterson added that 'the quicker we get this resolved the quicker we can get confidence established.' ...
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said a number of issues were being discussed, including the testing of processed meat, EU labelling and the sharing of information among member states. ..."