— No one yet knows what vegetable or fruit is the ultimate source of the outbreak of a deadly form of e. coli in Europe. Nor do officials know at what point the contamination occurred: on the farm, as agricultural workers handled the produce, as a result of packaging, in the midst of transport or at some other point in the chain of supply. What is clear is that, even after the actual health hazards are contained, questions will have to be asked about how well the E.U.’s food safety system works.
European officials are adamant that the system does work. “Of course, when you talk about people dying, it is serious,” says Pekka Pesonen, Secretary-General of the European farmers’ union. “But we have to keep in mind that we have 500 million consumers in the E.U., and our food safety standards are probably the best in the world.” The 27-nation organization has a Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed set up in 1979 that includes several non-E.U. states in its reports. In 2009, there were around 8,000 alerts of which only 500 were serious warnings about food already on the market.
However, that mechanism is based on an honor system. Whenever and wherever an E.U. member state faces a serious and damaging food issue, it must inform the European Commission and all the other Member States. In the current crisis, the information shared by the Commission with the EU 27 was based on findings made by local authorities in Hamburg — the general locus of the outbreak — and German federal authorities. But somehow, things went wrong — resulting in intra-E.U. bickering, widespread economic harm and broader trade ramifications.
Originally the authorities in Hamburg identified the source of the outbreak as Spanish cucumbers. This was not only incorrect but led to an acrimonious argument between Spain and Germany, with Madrid demanding compensation for the damage done. It is estimated that 150,000 tons of cucumbers went unsold in Spain, with the losses put at more than 200 million Euros a week. Given the importance of the agricultural sector to a Spanish economy , German finger-pointing had a clear cost. It was, perhaps, a classic clash between Germanic over-caution and Latin pride, and had echoes in the ongoing Eurozone saga that pits Berlin’s stern budget balancing against the perceived profligacy of southern Europe.
When Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Spanish Prime Minister Jos Luis Rodrguez Zapatero by phone, she regretted the damage caused to the Spanish economy. But she said that the Hamburg authorities had acted in accordance with German law — and, in any case, they did find E. coli in the Spanish imports, even if it was not the deadly strain they were looking for. Merkel tried to soothe Zapatero’s anger by suggesting that there may be E.U. payouts for the Spanish farmers’ losses, although it was not clear why Europe, rather than Germany, should be footing this bill.
