＂Double standards＂ cause trouble! Refuse to be a ＂second-class consumer＂. Central and Eastern European consumers cross-border shopping.

　　CCTV News:The same canned fish in the supermarket has more fish in Austria than in neighboring Hungary; Coke sold in the Czech Republic will replace higher fructose and glucose syrup with lower-priced sugarcane and beet sugar. In Central and Eastern European countries, consumers claim to be "second-class consumers" because there are "double standards" in the quality of some foods sold in Central and Eastern European markets compared with those in Western European markets.

　　The same package, but the contents in the package are quite different. In the Austrian town of Nikelsdorf near Hungary, we met Krista, the owner of a medium-sized supermarket. She told us that Hungarians who live on the other side of the border come here every week to buy food with higher quality but lower price.

　　Supermarket owner kristaMany Hungarians will come to buy many things, such as food, body care products, or clothes cleaning agents. Because they told me that these products have the same name, but the quality here in Austria is much better. "

　　What krista said is not groundless. Last year, after investigation, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia and Slovakia reported the fact that multinational companies sold low-quality food in Central and Eastern Europe to the European Commission. At the beginning of this year, Hungary also did relevant food tests.

　　Hungarian Minister of Agriculture Fazekas Shan DuoerAll the tests were carried out this year, and it was found that the quality of food distributed by some manufacturers to western Europe and eastern Europe was different under the same brand. They send products with poor ingredients and raw materials to Eastern Europe, so they are actually deceiving consumers in Eastern Europe, which is why we appeal to the EU. "

　　journalistThe reason why the food sold in Central and Eastern Europe is considered to be of poor quality is because the proportion of main raw materials in these foods is always less than that of the same goods sold in Western European markets. For example, the content of tea extract, the main component of an iced black tea sold in Czech Republic, is 40% less than that in German market. Of the 100 kinds of foods tested in Hungary, 70 are different in quality from those sold in the Western European market. "

　　On October 13th, an international conference was held in Bratislava, Slovakia, with the theme of "Equal product quality for all". During the meeting, the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland made a joint statement, demanding that the European Commission eliminate the double standards of food quality in eastern and western Europe. Vera Yulova, the European Commissioner in charge of consumer protection, promised to focus on investigating the truth.

　　EU Consumer Council Member Yulova"This double standard problem is not only related to the content of meat or sugar in specific foods, but also to a bigger problem, that is, the trust of EU citizens in the common single market."

　　However, this double-standard practice of multinational corporations is not illegal under the existing legal framework of the European Union, as long as they list the contents of all ingredients on the outer packaging of food. Some companies explained that the company did this to adapt to the tastes and eating habits of consumers in different regions.

　　Hungarian Minister of Agriculture Fazekas Shan DuoerSome companies say that they do it to satisfy the tastes of different consumers, but if you look closely, you will find that in the eastern European market, multinational companies always use cheaper raw materials. Solve the so-called problem of different tastes, so we want to eliminate this phenomenon. I am very happy that the EU agrees with our approach. "

　　On September 13th, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that "second-class consumers are not allowed to appear in the EU", and the EU will legally and financially authorize consumer institutions in various countries to investigate and prosecute illegal multinational companies. At the same time, the European Commission provided 1 million euros to its joint research center to improve the comparative testing of transnational products, and provided a total of 1 million euros in funding to Central and Eastern European member States to promote related research and law enforcement actions.

　　Alexandru Potor, Romanian Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development"I think this matter is developing in a good direction at present, and I believe that we will soon have a common EU legal framework on double standards of food quality."

　　Mr. Shan Duoer, Minister of Agriculture of Hungary, said that he hoped that the EU could formulate relevant laws and policies before 2018, but if the EU did not take enough actions, the Central and Eastern European countries had to formulate their own laws and regulations at the national level, which was certainly not as effective as the EU’s intervention.