BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania on Wednesday urged the European Union to address the "double standards" used by food companies in selling different products under identical labels in the bloc's eastern and western regions.
The practice is legal in the EU as long as ingredients are clearly listed.
But officials in ex-communist Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria have criticized several global food chains for using the loophole to sell what they say are inferior products in their countries.
Romania's Agriculture Minister Petre Daea told reporters on Wednesday a study showed that nine of 29 food products sold in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany "were different in Romania from the West."
It found different calorie content in some types of canned fish, liver pate and pork products.
While stressing none of the nine products were unfit for human consumption, researchers who carried out the study criticized "a lack of correlation between labels in Western and Eastern Europe."
"We will demand that (the European Commission) speed up regulatory proceedings so that instruments are created to assess at any time, in any (member state) such double standards," the minister said.
Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico - representing the Visegrad Four countries that also include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland - will discuss the issue in Brussels on Thursday with European Commission President Juncker and Council President Donald Tusk.
(Reporting by Radu Marinas; additional reporting by Tatiana Jankarikova in Bratislava; editing by John Stonestreet)
