(ANNECY) - Europe must step up checks on food imports in the face of growing scares like that over toxic milk in China, the French agriculture minister said Monday.

"We can see with what's going on in China with milk, with what's happened in Ukraine with tainted oil, that society has demands," Michel Barnier told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of an EU farm ministers meeting.

Barnier, whose country currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, said the Chinese milk scare "supports me in defending a memorandum ... on stepping up safety controls of imports to Europe."

He said that the aim was to "protect consumers, harmonise control methods and rules and also make sure that products entering Europe respect the same norms that we put on our producers."

France hopes that the measures will win backing by the EU's other 26 members by the end of its presidency on December 31. It would then be up to the European Commission to draft a formal legal proposal.

The memorandum, which Paris first put forward in June, aims to fill holes in existing import controls.

"They are linked mainly to the difference in application of controls between member states" and the absence of "real risk analysis" for the most problematic products and a harmonisation of rules, according to the document.

Paris estimates that about 15 to 20 countries back the plans.

However, other countries such as Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden are reticent over concerns of being accused of protectionism by Europe's trading partners at the World Trade Organisation.

They suspect Paris of wanting to create new food safety barriers to protect European farmers from foreign competition.

Germany also has reservations about the plan, insisting that the onus should be on exporting countries to ensure that their products are safe before being sent abroad.

"It makes no sense to step up controls in Europe if food is already dangerous when it leaves," said German State Secretary of Agriculture Gert Lindemann.

"We want stronger controls in export countries, and in this case in China. It's China's obligation," he said.

The EU Commission asked the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to "urgently assess possible public health risks" of China's tainted milk scandal to consumers.

"There is no question of having milk products from China in the EU because we have banned all imports some years ago," EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said on the margins of a meeting of European farm ministers in Annecy, eastern France.

"But in case they have used some milk for the production of biscuits or other products we have asked EFSA to give us an opinion, whether this... can have any effect on the health of the people," she added.

The findings are expected to be available on Wednesday or Thursday, said EFSA director-general Catherine Geslain-Laneelle

The European Union imposed an embargo on Chinese dairy products in 2002, concerned at what it saw as insufficient industry controls there.

Despite the ban, the European Commission has asked EU nations to be on the look out for any Chinese milk products entering the bloc, calling on member states to boost border controls.

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