Rigour, with exact regulations

Soon, retailers and manufacturers might be fined billions instead of millions, when found to be in breach of food safety regulations. They believe that the proposed fines are excessive. Hungary’s accession to the EU has brought about a complete liberalisation of the market and a relaxation of strict food safety regulations. While border inspections of imported products had been abandoned, the competent authority had also been reorganised several times. At present, the food safety authority belongs to the ministry of agriculture. The first major food safety scandal took place in 2004, when paprika thought to be of Hungarian origin was mixed with paprika from South America, which contained toxins. The next major scandal was the re-labelling of food by M.E.G.A. Trade in 2006. Protecting the health of consumers is a grateful task for political forces. The rigour exercised last year brought results, as the two major inspection campaigns lead to a reduction both in the number and the weight of cases. While illegal activities had been organised on a large scale in the past, only small fish was caught last year. Legislation in effect at present only allows fines in the order of a few million HUF to be imposed and the names of the guilty cannot be automatically revealed to the public. New legislation on food safety is expected in the summer, which will replace four existing laws and decrees. The government believes that measures in the original version of the bill are too lenient. The government wants the upper limit of fines to be HUF two billion, and fines to be dependent on turnover, rather than the size of the company. György Vámos, the secretary of the National Retail Association thinks that this is unacceptable. He would prefer fines to be related to the weight of the offence.