V4 Summit to Debate Imports of Low Quality Food from Western Europe

Trnava, February 27 (TASR) – Warsaw will host an extraordinary summit of the prime ministers of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries on Thursday, March 2, Slovak Premier Robert Fico announced on Monday.

The summit will bring together the heads of government of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to discuss findings regarding the reportedly low quality of foodstuffs imported from western Europe to the four countries.

“We want to approve a declaration at the summit with an exact description of problems concerning imports of poor-quality products. We want to react to something that we can’t accept – being made into second-class people. We’ll demand that the European Commission intervenes against this practice,” said Fico, who initiated the get-together.

Fico went on to point out that the V4 represents 65 million people, and if their voice is loud enough, the Commission will have to deal seriously with the issue.

Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Gabriela Matecna (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) recently announced that official laboratory tests have confirmed that the quality of almost half of the same products manufactured by supranational producers was better in Austria than in Slovakia.

International producers or brands thus create two classes of consumers, stated Matecna, adding that sweetened drinks, spices, cheese, tea and meat products came out worst in the testing.

“The tests’ results have only confirmed concerns that we’ve repeatedly communicated to the EU’s institutions. We’ve found big differences that considerably influence quality in half of the tested products. Naturally, the differences were to the detriment of international products sold in Slovakia,” stated Matecna.