  We analyse the propagation of electromagnetic waves in magnetoelectric media.
Recently, Feigel has predicted that such a medium may ``extract momentum from
vacuum" in the sense that the total momentum of the virtual waves (vacuum
fluctuations of the electromagnetic field) is nontrivial. Our aim is to check
the feasibility of this effect. The crucial point in our study is an assumption
of the finite size of the magnetoelectric sample, which allows us to reduce the
calculation of the momenta and forces of the electromagnetic waves acting on
the sample to the vacuum region outside of the medium. In this framework, we
demonstrate that, in contrast to Feigel, the total force caused by the virtual
is zero, with an appropriate count of the modes that should be taken into
account in this effect. Furthermore, we find that the two irreducible parts of
the magnetoelectric matrix behave differently in the possible Feigel effect.
Going beyond the original scheme of the virtual electromagnetic waves, we
propose an experimental scheme which is suitable for the measurement of the
magnetoelectric susceptibilities of the medium with the help of real
electromagnetic waves.
