Dual quality of products: we do not accept second-class consumers in the EU

Products sold under the same brand name must have the same composition throughout the EU - this is the key message delivered by EPP Group MEP Ivan Štefanec, Group Spokesperson on dual-quality products.

The Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee this morning adopted a report that proposes measures to solve this problem of quality differences between products sold under the same brand and packaging in different EU countries.

The scandalous discoveries last year revealed that there are differences in product quality between countries, mainly in Eastern Member States of the EU.

When comparing food products such as soft drinks or chocolate and non-food products such as cosmetics and detergents, they were of different quality.

“We cannot accept this type of different treatment of European consumers”, stressed Ivan Štefanec MEP. “This is why we want to put pressure on the EU to set rules on product quality and enforce them to ensure a true Single Market in Europe for consumers.”

The EPP Group therefore supports the new common testing methodology developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) for comparing the quality of food products across the EU.

“A unified methodology is absolutely crucial because every Member State still currently assesses quality according to different standards. If we have a unified methodology, we can apply it everywhere; it is therefore the key to having the same composition for branded products in every Member State”, underlined Štefanec.

Another concrete measure supported by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee is a pilot project to investigate several categories of consumer products. 

“It is crucial not only to cooperate between national regulators but also between consumer organisations. We have to provide a platform for collecting information to have much more information than we have right now. The European Institutions should act based on that information”, said Štefanec.

“We, the EPP Group, support equal treatment for consumers all over the EU. There cannot be any second-class citizens”, concluded Štefanec.