Foodlaw-Reading
Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Commission consultation, 14 April 2021
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Commission consultation: Draft COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION amending Regulation (EU) 2019/787 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the definition of allusions to legal names of spirit drinks or geographical indications for spirit drinks and their use in the description, presentation and labelling of spirit drinks other than the spirit drinks to which allusion is made. A copy of this document is available on this site (click on image). For more details of the consultation, see the Commission page: Definition and use of allusions to names of spirit drinks. The consultation closes on the 12 May 2021. |
The following is the start of the Explanatory Memorandum:
1. CONTEXT OF THE DELEGATED ACT
Regulation (EU) 2019/787 has clarified and substantially reworded certain production and labelling provisions concerning spirit drinks and foodstuffs produced by using spirit drinks as ingredients. In view of providing an adequately long period to test the soundness of the reformulated provisions, the Legislator has empowered the Commission until 25 May 2025 to adopt delegated acts to amend those provisions or supplementing the Spirit Drinks Regulation by derogating from those provisions.
In particular, the definition and conditions of use of ‘allusions’ to the name of one or more spirit drinks have been fundamentally reformulated with respect to the current provisions, restricting the possibility to use ‘allusions’ only to foodstuffs other than spirit drinks and to liqueurs. This precludes the possibility to use the name of spirit drinks in the description, presentation or labelling of spirit drinks other than liqueurs.
However, for certain spirit drinks it is traditional practice to refer to names of other spirit drinks when they constitute the sole alcoholic base from which they are further processed or have been matured or finished in casks having previously contained other spirit drinks.
This possibility should be preserved and therefore Regulation (EU) 2019/787 should be amended to allow the allusion to names of spirit drinks or geographical indications for spirit drinks in the description, presentation and labelling of other spirit drinks.
