At today’s conference of the European People’s Party on the different quality of products in the EU market, Croatian Member of the European Parliament Biljana Borzan fiercely confronted a brand representative who claimed that the issue of different quality is “fake news”.
“If HIPP withdrew a lower quality product from the Croatian market after my study, if Bahlsen started putting butter in cookies for the eastern market after being called out, if Pepsi Co. decided to launch a higher quality western product across the entire market, who are you to claim that this problem is ‘fake news’?” said Borzan, leaving him without a response.
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At a workshop organized by the European People’s Party (EPP), Borzan also urged colleagues, including those from Croatia, to convince the People’s Party to support positive and urgently needed changes for consumers.
“My colleagues and I have conducted a series of studies on this topic, we fought for 800 thousand euros worth of European testing, we are writing the first report on different quality in the European Parliament, and all of this is happening while the majority of the EPP remains silent. According to the amendments from the EPP on my report, I see that they do not have a unified position and I call on colleagues who understand this problem to talk to them,” said Borzan.
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She also reminded that more than 80 percent of citizens in Croatia said they feel like second-class citizens because of this issue.
“No one will convince me that we are crazy and that we ourselves, according to ‘market research’, choose more expensive lower quality products! It is time to stop this problem and for the EPP to put citizens ahead of industry interests!” said Borzan.
