Photo taken on Aug. 9, 2017 shows eggs sold in a Belgian market, in Brussels, Belgium.(Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

BRUSSELS, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Several European countries are affected by fipronil contaminated eggs, causing millions of eggs to be removed from shelves in European markets.

So far, contaminated eggs from the Netherlands have been found in Belgium, Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Denmark, Switzerland, and China's Hong Kong, according to European Commission's spokesperson Daniel Rosario.

SLOW REACTION

With the development of the contaminated eggs incident, legal procedures have started in some of the countries affected. The Dutch public prosecutor has said that two people had been arrested in the country for being involved into the contamination.

A spokesman of Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel also confirmed that Belgium would set up a task force to examine all possible measures to support the poultry sector following the insecticide-contaminated egg scandal.

Despite these measures, the incident has provoked concern in different sectors of society in Europe over the slow reaction of governments to the problem.

Ruben Sanchez, the spokesperson for the Spanish consumer association, Consumers in Action (FACUA), told Xinhua that some European Union (EU) counties were late to inform about the detection of the contaminated eggs, provoking anger in other EU and also non-EU nations.

It was known in November 2016 that the problem existed in the Dutch company, Chickfriend, and the adequate measures were not taken. Moreover, the Belgian food safety agency discovered the contaminated eggs on June 2, but reported the issue to the EU on July 20.

Ingmar Streese, Head of consumer policy department of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations, said that to their surprise and disappointment, public authorities in Belgium and the Netherlands were very slow in reaction and very slow in putting these information into the European database rapid alert system. This has been handled very poorly by authorities of these states, he added.

He continued that they hope all European countries, in the future in any kind of food crisis or toxins within food, immediately inform the other countries.

TRANSPANRENCY AND COOPERATION

EU has long been famous for its high standard of good safety, however, the incident of contaminated eggs not only provoked concerns in Europe about the slow reaction of the governments, but also about their capacity to deal with such public health crisis.

Sanchez said that the EU should "work to find out who is responsible, investigate and consider sanctions against those countries who have committed irregularities and also shown a lack of transparency".

And he believed that transparency is very important and governments should join hands with civil society.

"We believe that a serious government should give information to consumer protection organizations. The (Spanish) Health Ministry, however, failed to publish any declaration until FACUA issued a press communique criticizing their lack of transparency and publically talked about our worries of what could happen and the need to set up a protocol," he said.

He added that governments have to inform the organizations of civil society.

Streese had the same view on the importance of civil society. He said, "We will hold government and authorities accountable, to react immediately to be really consumer-oriented, not business-oriented because it's a matter of toxication. We will ask them on a regular basis what they have changed."

"We will also focus on the industry. We still have to wait for results what exactly happened in this crisis. We will see if there is criminal intent to contaminate the natural cleaning agent with fipronil. We will be a loudspeaker for any warnings given to consumers," he added.

In an increasingly globalised world, a great amount of food circulates around the earth. Thus, there might be loopholes in any part of the food supply chain. When an incident which may risk public health takes place in one country, it is extremely difficult to guarantee that it will not spread to other countries.

Therefore, EU countries should be transparent on such important public crisis and cooperate with civil society to better protect their consumers.