"There can be no compromise on consumer safety," Kuneva told Chinese officials on 23 July, after she explained that China had failed to convincingly fulfill a 2006 agreement, which asks that Beijing report quarterly on how it is following up on EU alerts on dangerous products being imported into the bloc.
"This has not been executed properly...The first report was very poor in respect of tracking down, the second was better but still not sufficient. That's why I'm here…What we need is to track down all of our notifications at source," she said.
Out of the 924 products barred from European markets in 2006 following safety alerts - ranging from cosmetics and toys to electrical appliances and motor vehicles - 50% came from China. Kuneva stressed that, even if the EU is China's number one export market, this figure is "too high".
International mistrust about Chinese products has rocketed after the deaths of 100 people in Panama due to mislabelled medicine ingredients, and reports of poisonous pet food ingredients and food containing banned antibiotics in the US.
While insisting that safety fears are being overblown abroad, Li Changjiang, director of China's Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine State Administration, said that his country would "try to improve its work in order to guarantee the quality of our exported products".
Kuneva underlined that co-operating with the EU would increase international trust in Chinese goods and stressed that EU bans on Chinese goods was a form of hidden protectionism. "Trust in the market is essential. And there will be no double standards – all goods coming on to the European market will treated the same," she said.
A new report on Chinese actions is due in October – shortly before EU President José Manuel Barroso holds a November summit with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
