Last month, Burger King found horse meat at European supplier

Originally published January 31, 2013
Burger King announced Thursday that it had terminated its relationship with European supplier Silvercrest Foods after finding traces of horse meat in beef patties at a Silvercrest facility.

Silvercrest provided beef for Burger King restaurants in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark. Burger King said that while samples of beef from restaurants in these countries showed no evidence of contamination, four samples from a Silvercrest plant in Ireland showed "very small trace levels of equine DNA."

Burger King said the tainted product was never sold in restaurants, and appeared to have originated from a sub-contracted supplier in Poland.

"[W]e are deeply troubled by the findings of our investigation and apologize to our guests, who trust us to source only the highest quality 100% beef burgers," Burger King's vice president for global quality, Diego Beamonte, said in a statement. Read more >>

Denmark to scrap world's first fat tax

Denmark said Saturday it would scrap a fat tax it introduced a little over a year ago in a world first, saying the measure was costly and failed to change Danes' eating habits.

"The fat tax and the extension of the chocolate tax -- the so-called sugar tax -- has been criticised for increasing prices for consumers, increasing companies' administrative costs and putting Danish jobs at risk," the Danish tax ministry said in a statement.

"At the same time it is believed that the fat tax has, to a lesser extent, contributed to Danes travelling across the border to make purchases," it added.

"Against this background, the government and the (far-left) Red Green Party have agreed to abolish the fat tax and cancel the planned sugar tax," the ministry said.

Denmark's centre-left minority government is made up of the Social Democrats, Social Liberals and Socialist People's Party, and requires support from other parties to pass legislation in parliament. The government and the Red Greens reached the agreement as part of their negotiations on the 2013 budget bill.

The previous right-wing government introduced the fat tax in October 2011 to limit the population's intake of fatty foods. According to the Danish National Health and Medicines Authority, 47 percent of Danes are overweight and 13 percent are obese. Read more >>

Foreign Lawmakers Slam “Assassin” Obama Over Drone Strikes

British and Danish politicians have spoken out in disgust at the US policy of drone strikes in Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen, calling it targeted assassination.

“It’s terrible,” said Rasmus Helveg Petersen, the foreign policy spokesperson for Radikale, the Danish Social Liberal Party.

“The United States has no right to carry out these types of executions of suspected political adversaries. It contravenes international law.” Petersen said in an interview with the Politiken newspaper.

Peterson added that Obama was mirroring terrorist activity by adhering to the policy. ”It is tantamount to terrorism where you also kill people for political motives in someone else’s territory.” Peterson said.

Another Danish lawmaker, Soren Pind, of the Venstre party, Denmark’s opposition party, also blasted Obama. In an interview with Ræson magazine, Pind said “I criticized George Bush for combining the presidency with something we could view as torture. But what Obama is doing is combining the presidency with assassination. In reality it is much worse. Obama is completely ignoring the western world’s principles, and in the long run it will be detrimental.” Read more >>

Nearly One in Five EU Residents Struggle to Cope Financially

John Chapman and Femke De Keulenaer

BRUSSELS -- In July 2009, at a time when several European economies were just coming out of recession, nearly one in five (18%) European Union residents said their household had at some time in the past year run out of money to pay ordinary bills or to buy food or other daily consumer items.

Romanians (45%) and Latvians (40%) were most likely to say they had run out of money to pay for essential goods and services in the 12 months before the survey. In a number of other eastern European countries, such as Hungary, Bulgaria, and Lithuania, about a third of respondents said their household had gone through a similar experience. However, far fewer residents reported such problems in Denmark (5%), the Netherlands (8%), Sweden and Luxembourg (both 9%), and Germany (10%).

Looking ahead to the next 12 months, slightly more than one-quarter (26%) of EU residents expected their household's financial situation to deteriorate. More than half (55%) of respondents expected that their household's financial situation would be stable and 16% anticipated that their household's financial situation would improve.

Residents in Latvia (65%) and Lithuania (58%) were the most likely to expect their household's financial situation to be worse in the 12 months following the poll. At least 4 in 10 residents expected the same in Hungary (48%), Ireland (43%), Estonia, Greece, and Romania (all 41%).

Among the least likely to be pessimistic about their household's future financial situation (that is, thinking it would deteriorate) were those in Denmark (10%), Finland and Sweden (both 15%), Luxembourg (17%), and Austria (18%). Furthermore, at the time of the survey, at least one in five respondents in Sweden (24%) and Denmark (21%) expected an improvement in their household's financial situation in the year to come.

The EU residents most likely to expect their household's financial problems to get worse in the next 12 months were the unemployed (33%), retirees (31%), and those aged 55 and older (31%). Furthermore, 42% of those residents who had been unable to pay essential bills thought their household situation would get worse, compared with 23% of those who never had that experience.

These results show the picture of how EU residents were coping with the effects of the financial crisis in July 2009. Early next year, we will publish another article on this same topic.

Eurobarometer Reports

Gallup conducts Flash Eurobarometer surveys for the European Commission. These surveys enable European policymakers to hear the voices of EU residents in the 27 member states. Gallup has worked with the Commission on more than 90 Flash Eurobarometer surveys (with close to 1.5 million interviews) on subjects from the euro to consumer protection and from higher education to the financial crisis.

Read the full report online.

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