The sitting was attended by Assistant Minister of Health Zoran Vucic, Director of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management Veterinary Directorate Ivan Soco, Head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management Veterinary Inspection Sanja Celebicanin and Provincial Secretary for Agriculture, Water Management and Forestry Goran Jesic.
The representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management said that, according to the Food Safety Law, the Ministry is in charge of food safety. They outlined the procedure for testing food safety and stressed that the consumption of milk would not jeopardize the health of the citizens of Serbia, because although the level of aflatoxines in some samples is above the permitted limits, it is still below concentrations which might cause health problems. The representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management added that the disputable samples were sent to the Netherlands for testing at the European Union Reference Laboratory.
The Provincial Secretary for Agriculture, Water Management and Forestry, Goran Jesic, said that the laboratory in Becej performed an extraordinary milk quality analysis on the territory of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina the results of which had shown that in 25 out of the 35 milk samples the concentration of aflatoxines exceeded the permitted levels. Jesic stressed that he had informed the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia and the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management about it and deemed that the state has to state which milk was discovered to contain an excessive amount of aflatoxines and have the milk withdrawn from the market.
Following a long debate, the Committee members underlined the importance of food safety and the state’s duty to protect the health of its citizens. Some Committee members said that the state representatives have failed to react in duly and inform the public about the milk containing excessive amounts of aflatoxines in order to avoid public panic. In the course of the debate, some Committee members opined that the milk quality issue had been politicized and that panic had indeed been spread, and the state did take care of the quality of its citizens’ food.

The sitting was chaired by Prof. Dr Dusan Milisavljevic, Committee Chairman.