European Commission to organize summit over toxic eggs crisis

The European Commission wants to organize a summit type meeting for EU food safety minsters about the crisis surrounding eggs being contaminated with toxic insecticide fipronil, EU Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said in a statement. He wants this meeting to put an end to the infighting and accusations, RTL Nieuws reports.

With this Andriukaitis is talking about, among others, the Netherlands and Belgium. This week Belgium accused the Netherlands of knowing about the fipronil contamination in eggs since November last year. The Netherlands claims this is a misrepresentation of the facts.

Andriukaitis wants this meeting to be held as soon as possible, but at least before the end of September. In addition to food safety minsters, he would also like food supervisors and watchdogs to participate.

"Accusing each other brings us nowhere", he said, according to RTL. "We must work together to draw lessons from this, instead of losing energy by pointing fingers."

On Thursday the Belgian and Dutch authorities raided a number of addresses in the investigation into the fipronil contamination. In the Netherlands three people are suspected of endangering public health in this case. Two of them were arrested, the other is currently away on holiday.