Council Press Release (PRES/06/70), 20 March 2006

PROTECTED DESIGNATIONS – Adoption of Regulations on Food stuffs Quality by the Council

The following is an extract from the report of the Council Meeting Agriculture and Fisheries

The Council adopted by qualified majority the two Regulations on the protection of geographical indications (GIs) and designations of origin (DOs) for agricultural products and foodstuffs and replacing Council Regulation (EEC) n°2081/92[5] and on agricultural products and foodstuffs as traditional specialities guaranteed (TSG) and replacing Council Regulation (EEC) n°2082/92. The delegation of the Netherlands voted against. Statements of the Commission and of the Greek delegation were issued.

Both of these draft Regulations had been presented to the Council on 23 January 2006 . These two proposals were dealt with under the consultation procedure (Article 37 of the Treaty) and therefore the Opinion of the European Parliament is not legally binding. The European Parliament formally adopted its Opinion on both of these proposals on 16 March 2006 with minor changes, and many of the amendments went along with the changes agreed at technical level within the Council. According to the Commission representative, a number of items suggested by Parliament had been included in the Regulations, while others will be addressed in the context of the planned future policy review. These proposals do not have a financial impact on the Community budget.

The original Community legislative framework for organic production, TSG's, GI's and DO's was set up in the early nineties. In the meantime, following legislative changes, enlargement and in particular legal claims lodged by third countries ( Australia and the United-States) at the World Trade Organisation as well as technical problems when implementing these Regulations have showed the need for an overall change.

Since its presentation to the Council last January, the working party on foodstuffs quality has met several times and proceeded to an in-depth and intensive examination of the content of the proposal. A very large agreement - gathering nearly all the delegations -on the two proposals was reached at the Special Committee on Agriculture on 6 March, following several meetings under the auspices of the Austrian Presidency.

Most of the changes brought to the Commission proposals usually consist of coming back to the initial wording of EEC Regulation 2081/92 in the case of the definition of GIs and its criteria (Article 2 paragraph 1b), of the right of objection (Article 7) where any Member State or a third country (new provision) has the right to object to the registration 6 months after the publication of this registration to the Official Journal (instead of 4 months initially), or amending the deadlines proposed for the implementation by Member States of the provisions (no later than one year after the entry into force of the Regulation instead of no initial deadline), for the scrutiny period during which the Commission examines the application for registering a product (12 months instead of no initial deadline). The initial draft on compulsory Community symbols associated with GIs or Dos on the labelling of a product have also been replaced by an alternative choice between a Community symbol or the indication GIs/DOs and by the postponement of this provision in 2009 (rather than 2007). An additional paragraph (see Articles 9(4) and 11(3) in the two regulations) allowing for the possibility of a temporary derogation to the requirements under strict conditions following the imposition of obligatory sanitary or phytosanitary measures by the public authorities such as in the case of avian influenza. Finally the regulatory committee currently in charge of the management of this Regulation remains the sole committee, as the Commission initially proposed a management committee and a regulatory committee.

When comparing the two proposals on GI's-DO's and TSG's with Council Regulations (EEC) n°2082/92 and 2081/92, the main changes were:

• the introduction of a single document (Article 5(3)(c) 5099/1/06) for applications containing the name, a brief description of the product, specific rules concerning packaging and labelling, a definition of the geographical area from which comes the agricultural product or foodstuff; and proof of the link between the product and its geographical origin; this single document aims at ensuring key information to be officially published before registration in order to allow any operator to use its right of objection, and the authorities to guarantee protection for the names registered in each Member State. It will also ensure a greater homogeneity and equal treatment for applications; On TSG's, only the restricted product specification (Article 6 doc 5098/06) shall be transmitted to the Commission;
• the possibility for third countries operators to submit registration application directly through the Commission (Article 5(9) doc 5099/1/06 and Article 7(7) of doc 5098/06);
• in order to bring the Community legislation into line, all provisions related to equivalence and reciprocity for products from third countries are deleted (former Articles 12 to 12d) in order to allow all names corresponding to geographical areas in third countries to have access to the Community scheme for the protection of GI's; in the same spirit the draft proposal allows third countries as well as Member States or operators to object directly to a registration proposed by groups of producers (Article 7 doc 5099/1/06).