LETTER: EU deal threatens food standards

The last thing we need is lower legal standards, but a deal being negotiated between the EU and the US could result in exactly that.

The EU-US trade deal aims to ‘harmonise’ European and American rules in food safety and many other areas, which in practice may mean slashing European standards to match the much lower US levels.

So, products like hormone-treated beef and pork, and chicken washed in chlorine, sold by US companies but currently banned here, could appear on supermarket shelves in the UK.

Food is just one area in which this deal would give multinational companies much more influence in our lives. Health care and education are among the others. The deal threatens our ability to run our society in the way we choose, and it must be stopped.

Darius Assassi

Sedgwick Lane, Horsham

Editor’s note: A number of letters were received from addresses all over Sussex, which made similar points to the correspondent above. These included letters from: Louise Wells, Flatt Road, Nurbourne; Heather Graham, Ash Road, Southwater; Natasha Langridge, Brooke View, Coldwaltham; Geraldine Rowland, Staples Barn Lane, Henfield