Certain products are sold across EU countries with significantly different composition, but branded in a seemingly identical way. ECR Group supported calls for ending this practice by introducing more transparency and cross-border cooperation and raising consumer awareness.

Certain products are sold across EU countries with significantly different composition, but branded in a seemingly identical way. ECR Group supported calls for ending this practice by introducing more transparency and cross-border cooperation and raising consumer awareness.

But according to ECR MEP Richard Sulík, the “dual quality” shouldn’t be labelled as an unfair practice by default, but rather evaluated on a case by case basis.

Mr Sulík said: “Companies change the composition of products to adjust to local taste or ingredients in general. It is therefore disappointing that the report voted in Strasbourg was amended by a proposal to list “dual quality” as an unfair practice per se. This idea was rejected by the Internal Market Committee. We acknowledge that legitimate reasons for these differences exist and should not always be considered misleading, provided that the products are safe and properly labelled. Moreover, we are still waiting for the results of the common methodology testing and related evaluation of said results.”