E. coli on the mind

Recent warnings by German authorities against vegetables from Spain were declared premature Wednesday after it was found that Spanish cucumbers were not responsible for an outbreak in Germany of the bacteria E. coli.

But the German backtrack came too late for many Spanish farmers after the warnings turned countless consumers off Spanish agricultural products. Now, the matter of compensation is hanging in the air.

If a European Union member state identifies a suspected contamination of food, it is obliged to warn the EU's Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF).

The RASFF has been in place since 1979 and brings several non-EU states into its fold. In 2009, there were around 8,000 alerts, only around 500 of which were serious warnings regarding food already on the market.

A step too far

But in the view of EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos, Germany went too far with its naming of a specific suspect country in Spain, a suspicion which turned out to be wrong.

"I think it is important, first of all, to restore the confidence of consumers and to keep their health in mind, but at the same time to avoid blaming any one country or producer," Ciolos said. "The vast majority of producers stick to the guidelines and could suffer serious losses, which, for some, could prove fatal."

However, on the issue of possible compensation, neither Ciolos nor Health Commissioner John Dalli has yet voiced an opinion. They have, however, offered to help.

Dalli described the spread of the E. coli pathogen as a serious crisis, but warned against panic over the outbreak, which has been particularly bad in the northern German city of Hamburg.

"I would not say that it would be proportional to tell people not to visit Hamburg," Dalli said. "But this is a question of making sure we apply normal hygienic measures in whatever we do. The washing of hands and raw food that we eat I think should go a long way to eliminating the problem."

Dalli went on to call on EU member states, and especially Germany, to leave no stone unturned in their efforts to find the source of the latest intestinal germ outbreak.

Author: Christoph Hasselbach / dfm
Editor: Nicole Goebel