People in Brussels, including EU leaders and MEPs, are being swindled in some restaurants where cheap cuts of fish are billed as expensive ones.
An undercover investigation, conducted with DNA analysis by the University of Leuven, examined 280 orders from 150 restaurants, including some in and near the European Commission and Parliament as well as the tourist quarter.
The investigators, posing as diners, ordered five types of fish – Atlantic cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish, ray and common sole.
What they were served was 36 types, including four which could not be identified by laboratory analysis.
The most serious swop financially was for Atlantic cod which was Pangasius instead. That fish is reared intensively in Vietnamese fish farms and costs 40% less. Pollock and Nice perch were others substituted for cod, the investigation found.
Only one in 20 orders of the endangered bluefin was the real thing. Yellowfin, bigeye or swordfish were common replacements.
“We know there is a lot of cheating going on but we don’t know if it’s the fisherman, the distributors or the restaurants. It’s probably a mix of everything,” said Lasse Gustavsson from the campaign group Oceana.
He said the situation in the EU canteens was “inadequate and dishonest” with various fish being served under different names with nearly 40% of fish dishes mislabelled.
A European Commission spokesman said: "The Commission canteens are served by contractors. They purchase their products on the market under the supervision of the competent national authorities."
But Mr Gustavsson argues that mislabelling efforts to maintain healthy fish stock at sea.
"Everywhere we look, we find fraud," he said. “Imagine a car market in which they sold you a Renault and told you it is a Rolls-Royce. This is exactly what is happening.”
He said his organisation plans to examine supermarkets next. “Consumers who spend six seconds choosing what to eat for dinner are easy to cheat,” he said.
