The European Commission is co-financing a plan to start immediately for one month that includes the establishment of the presence of unlabelled horse meat in foods, and the detection of possible residues of phenylbutazone in horse meat. Phenylbutazone is a veterinary medicinal product whose use in food producing animals, including horses, is illegal.

Member states endorsed the coordinated plan announced by Health & Consumer Policy Commissioner Tonio Borg on 13th February. The plan, which is co-financed by the European Commission, includes the establishment of the presence of unlabelled horse meat in foods. Over the last days, official controls in some member states revealed fraud in the marketing of foods: certain foods contained horse meat not declared in the list of ingredients and their name referred solely to the presence of beef. The plan, foresees controls, mainly at retail level, of foods destined for the final consumer and marketed as containing beef to detect the presence of unlabelled horse meat (indicative total number of 2250 samples across the Union ranging from 10 to 150 per Member State). In March 2012, the EU will keep its ban on imports of hormone-treated beef from USA and Canada.

The plan is also foreseeing the detection of possible residues of phenylbutazone in horse meat - the plan foresees testing of 1 sample for every 50 tons of horse meat. A member state will carry out a minimum of 5 tests. Phenylbutazone is a veterinary medicinal product whose use in food producing animals, including horses, is illegal.

The plan is to start immediately for one month (and may be extended for another two months). It provides for regular reporting of the results of the controls to the Commission, such as information on sampling, type of analysis and follow-up controls. For positive findings related to horse meat, the country where the animals concerned were certified for slaughter will also be reported. The Commission stressed that all these information will be included in the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) so that they can be immediately used by Member States' authorities.