Prague, July 28 (CTK) – The Czech Republic may become a waste bin of Europe if the European Union does not support it because it has no chance to defend itself against the poor quality of food and other products sold in Czech supermarkets, Czech State Secretary for EU Affairs, Ales Chmelar, told CTK on Friday.
Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which form the Visegrad Group (V4), recently complained in Brussels about products of the same brand name in their supermarkets being of poorer quality that in Western countries.
Chmelar said the Czechs cannot address another country on this issue since this is a problem of the whole European market rather than a single country.
He said the different quality of products resulted from the attitude of individual supranational chains and food makers to their customers.
The different contents of goods with the same wrapper was proved by several studies, one of which was done by the Czech Agriculture Ministry.
Last week, the V4 countries agreed in Budapest that they would demand that the EU deal with the issue. On Thursday, Slovak PM Robert Fico had talks with EC President Jean-Claude Juncker who promised to focus on it.
Chmelar said Juncker made a clear political pledge when he planned to meet the Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak prime ministers in September and discuss the issue.
He said Juncker had an opportunity to show that citizens from Central and East Europe are not second-class citizens.
Chmelar said the V4 countries cooperate not only in poor quality of food, but also in refugee affairs and their rejection of the obligatory quotas for the redistribution of refugees. This stance has been widely criticised by other EU countries, however.
He said the V4 is not merely a complaining group. “But the topics in which we seek common solutions without complaining simply are not so visible,” Chmelar said.
The V4 states have also decided to proceed jointly in the negotiations about the new seats of EU bodies that will move their headquarters from Britain after Brexit, he said.
Slovakia would like the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to be seated in its territory, while the three other V4 countries showed interest in the seat of the European Banking Authority (EBA).
