MEPs: Controls on Japan food imports may not be enough

TIGHTER controls on food coming from Japan are being put in place by the EU but some MEPs have warned they may not be enough to protect people from the dangers of radiation contamination.

The limits established after the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago are to be brought into line with more stringent limits imposed by the Japanese. Checks are being carried out more frequently, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told the European Parliament.

But the measures may not be enough to ensure no contaminated food gets through the net, according to the vice-chair of the parliament’s fisheries committee, Guido Milana.

He pointed out EU rules on country-of-origin labelling relate to fresh fish only. Canned fish and seafood, including imports from Japan, only have to show where the product was processed and not where the fish was caught.

With the radiation limits in the sea off Japan at dangerously high levels, this poses a problem, Mr Milana said. “Radioactivity in Japanese seawater was recently at one million times the legal limit. The EU must immediately improve labelling of canned fish and other foods that might have been contaminated by nuclear radiation,” he said.

New regulations on labelling intended to improve transparency and information are confined to meat labelling, and under the current proposal this could not be extended to cover other foods for another three years.

“The Commission and the member states must act immediately and ensure that EU consumers are adequately informed on whether or not canned fish might come from Japan,” Mr Milana said.

The EU introduced more frequent emergency checks on food from the areas of Japan that could be affected by leakage from the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster. Mr Barroso also announced that as a precautionary measure the EU would not apply the Japanese values, which are more stringent. Last week they extended the controls to include checks for plutonium.

Frederic Vincent, spokesperson for EU Health and Consumer Policy says that the levels in place are safe. “You would have to consume contaminated food for a full year before possibly having a problem,” he said.

Food makes up 1% of Japanese exports. EU imports of Japanese fishery and agricultural products, including about 9,000 tonnes of fruit, were worth about €205m last year.