European honey production under threat

During the plenary session of the European Parliament of Wednesday RMDSZ MEP Csaba Sógor explained his vote concerning the revision of the Honey Directive, expressing his concern for the Central and Eastern European beekeepers. He pointed out that the European market is currently being flooded by low quality Chinese and American honey that comes from genetically modified plants. The MEP described the difficulties quality and organic honey producers face in the member states, also speaking about EU consumers’ rights.

It is very important that we promote quality honey production in the European Union. I voted in favour of this proposal because I think we should support European honey production instead of importing low quality products originating mainly from China.

The Central and Eastern European countries, among which Romania comprise mainly small producers, but through the support of EU funded programmes these are now able to cooperate in the production of organic honey. We have made huge efforts in this sense and we continue working on the promotion of organic honey.

Although at the moment we are forced to buy low quality honey, we can only expect this to be labelled properly. It is the EU citizens’ right to know what they consume. Simply listing the ingredients does not suffice, the real issue is not weather pollen is an ingredient or a constituent of honey, the real problem is the production of honey from genetically modified plants that could also jeopardise European honey production.

The video recording of the speech can be viewed here.