The European food safety system has raised an alarm over several shipments of tangerines coming from Albania, as in recent weeks, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Italy and Lithuania, countries that have imported fruit from Albania, have stopped them at the border after analyses.
The tangerines result in residues of several substances dangerous to human health and banned for trade in the EU, specifically the pesticides chlorpyrifos and phosmet, which have an impact on brain development in children, disorders of the nervous and endocrine systems, as well as an increased risk of heart disease and cancer.
But despite the fact that the alert was confirmed by the European Commission on November 29 and December 11, there is no official announcement from the Albanian Ministry of Agriculture and food control institutions on the safety or withdrawal from the market of these products.
Pesticide residues result from analyses 3 to 12 times higher than what European regulations allow, changed lastly in September of last year.
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