Italy to recall contaminated mozzarella, EU executive 'satisfied'

ROME (AFP) -
The Italian government on Friday decided to begin recalling dioxin-tainted mozzarella from the market as France impounded shipments of the cheese made from buffalo milk in the region around Naples.

The Commission said it was "satisfied" with the move. "There is no reason at this stage to take further action at the EU level," spokeswoman Nina Papadoulaki told journalists in Brussels.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D%26#39;Alema earlier Friday said Rome would "this morning ... take the steps agreed with the European Union to withdraw from the market products that do not comply with standards and renew assurances to Italian and foreign consumers," the ANSA news agency reported.

The French government on Friday impounded shipments of mozzarella from Campania, the centre of chronic breakdowns in the waste disposal system that environmentalists say may be behind higher-than-normal levels of dioxin.

Japan and South Korea suspended imports of the cheese after Italian authorities said last week that high levels of dioxin, which increases the risk of cancer, were found in 66 buffalo herds around Naples.

But Rome has said that no tainted mozzarella has been exported, and Agriculture Minister Paolo De Castro insisted at a news conference on Thursday that "there is no health problem."

"It%26#39;s only a matter of a few limited cases in 83 farms out of 1,900 which were immediately isolated," he said.

He also rejected any link between the mozzarella contamination and the waste disposal crisis that engulfed the Naples region at the end of last year.

Overloaded treatment centres have reached the tipping point several times since 1994.

The problem is exacerbated by the local Camorra mafia, which controls many dumps in the region and makes a lucrative business out of shipping in industrial waste from companies in the north.

An animal disease prevention institute in Protici, near Naples, that has been monitoring milk and dairy products from 165 companies since January 2007 has cited dioxin "anomalies" at 25 of them.

The European Commission called late Thursday for urgent action and warned of unspecified steps against Campania, Italy%26#39;s poorest region.

"The commission believes that the measures put in place are not sufficient to ensure that no contaminated product enters the market," a statement said.

This was, it said, because "no recall of product potentially contaminated has been carried out and the surveillance programme on the farms of the Campania region is still too limited."

The commission said it could propose "safeguard measures for dairy products orginating from the region of Campania" if it deems new measures to be insufficient.

Italy produces 33,000 tonnes of mozzarella per year, some 80 percent of it in Campania, where a quarter of a million buffalo are farmed to produce milk for the product.

Buffalo milk mozzarella is a soft cheese served with tomatoes and basil in a Neapolitan speciality, the Caprese salad.