The European Commission will call an emergency meeting of ministers over insecticide-tainted eggs in a bid to end “blaming and shaming” over the scandal, health commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said on Friday (11 August).

Andriukaitis told AFP he wanted the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany to stop trading accusations about who is responsible for the scare, which involves fipronil, a chemical that can be harmful to humans.

German agriculture minister: Eggs scandal is a 'criminal' case Germany’s agriculture minister said on Tuesday (8 August) that the contamination of millions of eggs with a potentially harmful insecticide was “criminal”, as authorities in several European countries continued to investigate the food safety scare.

“Blaming and shaming will bring us nowhere and I want to stop this,” the Lithuanian Commissioner said in response to emailed questions.

“But first things first. Our common job and our priority now are to manage the situation, gather information, focus on the analysis and lessons to be learned in view to improve our system and prevent criminal activity,” Andriukaitis said.

“That is exactly what I have discussed with the German, Belgian and Dutch ministers this week. I proposed to hold a high-level meeting gathering the ministers concerned as well as the representatives of the food safety agencies in all member states involved as soon as we have all the facts available,” he added.