EU food safety experts are due to meet in Brussels to address the scandal over mislabelled horsemeat.
The EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain will draw up plans for large-scale testing of beef products to check if they contain horse DNA.
On Thursday the French government suspended the licence of processing firm Spanghero, saying it had “knowingly” sold horsemeat as beef.
In the UK three people were arrested for suspected fraud in meat sales.
The widening scandal has affected at least 12 countries and raised questions about the complexity of the food industry’s supply chains across Europe.
The previously little-known committee is suddenly the focus of attention, and the plans it comes up with could eventually have a huge impact on consumer confidence in the food being eaten in Europe.
The experts from all 27 EU countries will try to devise accurate random tests to determine the scale of the mislabelling of horsemeat.
They will also draw up plans for separate tests to assess the scale of contamination with phenylbutazone or “bute” – a veterinary medicine considered potentially harmful to humans.
Their proposals will still have to be approved by EU ministers.
EU food safety experts are due to meet in Brussels to address the scandal over mislabelled horsemeat
The scale of the crisis was underlined on Thursday in France, where ministers said they believed the sale of horsemeat labelled as beef went on for six months and involved about 750 tonnes of meat.
The French government accused meat processing firm Spanghero of knowingly mislabelling horsemeat as beef and suspended its licence pending further investigation.
The company has strongly denied the allegation, saying it only ever dealt in meat it believed to be beef.
Spanghero imported meat from Romania, which was correctly labeled, and sold it on to another company, Comigel, which made frozen ready meals at its factory in Luxembourg for further distribution.
Millions of processed meat products have been withdrawn from supermarket shelves across the EU.
The UK has asked the European investigative agency Europol to co-ordinate a continent-wide investigation into an alleged international conspiracy to pass horsemeat off as beef.
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The EU has outlined an “intensive monitoring plan” to tackle the widening scandal over mislabeled horsemeat.
All members would be asked to carry-out random DNA tests on beef products for traces of horsemeat for the next three months, the health commissioner said.
He was speaking after a crisis meeting with ministers from the UK, France and other affected countries in Brussels.
“This is a Europe-wide issue that needs a Europe-wide solution,” Irish Farm Minister Simony Coveney said.
“This is about someone in the food supply chain selling horsemeat as beef and making money in a fraudulent way by doing that,” Simony Coveney added.
EU Health Commissioner Tonio Berg also said a separate programme of random tests should be carried out on horsemeat to check for the presence of the veterinary medicine phenylbutazone – known as bute.
The measures follow the discovery that meat sold in up to 16 European countries labeled as beef contained horsemeat.
The scandal has raised questions about the complexity of the food industry’s supply chains across the 27-member EU bloc, with a number of supermarket chains withdrawing frozen beef meals.
In the UK, the supermarket giant Tesco, frozen food firm Findus and budget chain Aldi received horsemeat-tainted mince from Comigel, based in north-eastern France.
The EU has outlined an “intensive monitoring plan” to tackle the widening scandal over mislabeled horsemeat
Horsemeat has now been confirmed in some frozen lasagne on sale in France too.
In Germany, officials announced that a shipment of frozen lasagne suspected of containing horsemeat had arrived in the country. They were notified of the delivery by authorities in Luxembourg on Tuesday.
Comigel denied wrongdoing, saying it had ordered the meat from Spanghero, a firm in southern France, via a Comigel subsidiary in Luxembourg – Tavola.
The supply chain reportedly led back to traders in Cyprus and the Netherlands, then to abattoirs in Romania.
There are now calls for more specific labeling on processed meat products in the EU, to show country of origin, as in the case of fresh meat. But the cost of doing that may trigger opposition from food manufacturers.
Romania has denied claims that it was to blame for the mislabeling of horsemeat.
“There are plants and companies in Romania exporting horsemeat but everything was according to the standards, and the source and the kind of meat was very clearly put as being horsemeat,” said Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta.
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Romanian PM Victor Ponta has denied allegations that two abattoirs in his country sold horsemeat purporting to be beef to European food companies.
Victor Ponta said checks had been carried out and there had been no breach of rules and standards.
The abattoirs had been linked to the contamination of processed meat products sold in Europe.
UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is due to update MPs on the horsemeat scandal later on Monday.
The discovery of horsemeat in beef products has led to processed food being withdrawn from sale in Britain, France and Sweden.
Victor Ponta expressed anger that Romania had been blamed.
“From all the data we have at the moment, there is no breach of European rules committed by companies from Romania or on Romanian territory,” he told a news conference.
“I am very angry, to be honest.”
In France, the government has summoned meat industry representatives for crisis talks. Seven French supermarket chains have already withdrawn frozen ready meals made by Findus and food supplier Comigel.
An initial investigation found the meat originated from Romania. French investigators have visited two companies involved in the import and processing of meat to try to establish at what stage the horsemeat was labeled as beef.
Romanian PM Victor Ponta has denied allegations that two abattoirs in his country sold horsemeat purporting to be beef to European food companies
The UK government says that an “extensive” criminal conspiracy may have taken place.
UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said: “This is a case of fraud and a conspiracy against the public, this is a criminal action, substituting one material for another.”
Legal action is set to begin in continental Europe on Monday, he added.
The controversy surrounding contamination of meat products has also affected firms in the Irish Republic and Poland.
Last month, Irish food inspectors announced they had found horsemeat in some burgers stocked by a number of UK supermarket chains, including Tesco, Iceland and Lidl.
Owen Paterson said a factory in Luxembourg, which has been linked to the French cases, had to issue warnings to 16 different countries. He said he did not know how widespread the problem was but “we have to be prepared for more unwelcome news”.
Tests were continuing and it was the responsibility of the retailers to “convince their consumers of the validity and quality of their products”, he said.
Owen Paterson added that the UK’s Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) advice was to continue buying and eating processed beef products, but if any evidence of a serious threat to health emerged “we will act very swiftly”.
The FSA has ordered food businesses to conduct authenticity tests on all beef products for significant levels of horsemeat and the deadline for the first set of results is Friday 15 February.
Last week Findus UK took its frozen beef lasagne, made by Comigel, off the shelves after some were found to have up to 100% horsemeat in them.
Findus UK said the only product on sale in the UK using ingredients from the French supplier had been its beef lasagne and all other beef products on sale in the UK had been DNA-tested and cleared.
The FSA has asked Findus to test their contaminated beef lasagne for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone as animals treated with “bute” are not allowed to enter the food chain. The results are expected in the next few days.
The Chief Medical Officer for England, Dame Sally Davies, said: “It’s understandable that people will be concerned, but it is important to emphasize that, even if bute is found to be present at low levels, there is a very low risk indeed that it would cause any harm to health.”
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