Slovakia teams up with V4 partners in food quality fight

It is unacceptable for supranational corporations to import into post-communist countries products that are of a lower quality than those supplied in the same packaging and under the same name to shops in Western Europe, stated Prime Minister Robert Fico in reference to the Agriculture Ministry's recent findings regarding the so-called double quality of imported foods. Last week the ministry reported that laboratory tests confirmed that the quality of almost half the apparently identical products manufactured by supranational producers is better in Austria than in Slovakia. Supranational producers or brands are thus creating two classes of consumers, stated Agriculture minister Gabriela Matečná, adding that sweetened drinks, spices, cheese, tea and meat products came out the worst in the testing. Slovakia has launched a diplomatic initiative to reach out to its Visegrad group partners (the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland), whom this problem also concerns. According to PM Fico, Visegrad countries want to make it very clear to the European Commission that they will not tolerate such practices. "We will demand that the European Commission introduce relevant legislation without delay that would no longer allow practices that humiliate the citizens of Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic to continue," said Fico.