EU officials to meet about horse meat scandal
As the horse meat scandal continued to spread across the continent, European Union officials scheduled a Wednesday meeting to discuss the issue, CNN reported, citing an Irish official.
Simon Coveney, Ireland's agriculture minister, called for the informal session in Brussels, Belgium, inviting the EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg and ministers from other European Union nations.
Coveney said officials need to take "whatever steps may be necessary at EU level to comprehensively address this matter."
French officials said Monday they will take measures to ensure that no suspicious products remain for sale.
Officials said customers of the food supplier at the center of the uproar, French-based Comigel, will be inventoried.
"We will look (starting Monday) at who their clients are and, as a consequence, we will see what products will have to be taken off the market because there is a reasonable suspicion that these products are composed of horse meat and not beef," said France's junior minister for the social economy, Benoit Hamon.
Horse meat has been discovered in products that are supposed to be 100% beef sold in Sweden, the United Kingdom and France. As many as 16 European nations may be involved in the supply chain, officials say.
French officials said that they should know by Wednesday whether fraud or negligence is to blame for the scandal.
Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll said regulators weren't at fault.
"This is not a regulation failure," he said. "We have to stop saying that just because there is a fraud. That's like saying that just because there are police officers around and that an accident happens, there is a failure on the part of the police officers."