The reform of geographical indications is on its way, which will also include wine on a par with other EU-branded food products and will definitively close two thorny issues that closely concern Italy: those on the terms “Prosek” and “Balsamic”. Two events that pitted Italy against Croatia and Slovenia respectively and which will instead be resolved with the reform of geographical indication products. The news was given by MEP Paolo De Castro, member of the Agriculture Commission of the European Parliament and rapporteur on the reform of PDO and PGI products. «The two terminological questions will be resolved at the root – explains De Castro – in fact the text stipulates that it is forbidden for a member state to use a term that is a geographical indication of another member state as a traditional term, just as it will be forbidden to evoke the IGs of other Villages. Thus a story that has caused much discussion in Italy but which was observed with some concern on the part of France is thus definitively closed ».
Strengthen the safeguards
But GI reform is above all much more than litigation over contested terms. «There are several important innovations – adds the rapporteur of the text at the Agriculture Commission of the European Parliament -. First of all, we have resolved the question of whether or not wine should be included in the PDO and PGI reform. The wine will be included with full rights but at the same time its specificities will be strengthened within the common organization of the market relating to the same wine. In essence, the wine sector will obtain double protection. The CMO will be the basic regulation of wine legislation and the technical standards will be transferred to the CMO. While all the horizontal rules relating, for example, to protection and guardianship and to the role of the consortia which will be called upon to carry out supply regulation functions but will also be able to play a leading role on tourist initiatives which pertain to denomination. Other important innovations also involve “ex officio” protection, i.e. the institution that requires a member state to intervene in defense of a PDO even from a different country, for example, in the event that a fake is discovered on a shelf in the large distribution. This protection, introduced about ten years ago, will now extend from the monitoring of large-scale distribution to online counterfeiting with the possibility of intervening on sites and domains where fake PDO or PGI are for sale. There will be a crackdown on the use of PDO and PGI products as ingredients in processed products and on their use as a mock brand in large-scale distribution without the necessary authorization having been requested from the protection consortium. Last but not least, the obligation will be introduced for Protected Geographical Indication products to use at least 50% of the raw materials produced in the country to which the PGI brand belongs and the obligation to indicate the name of the subject on the label producer. So it will not be enough to write ‘Parmigiano Reggiano Dop’ but it will also be necessary to indicate the name of the single dairy”.
The text of the PDO and PGI reform will be examined by the European Parliament’s Agriculture Commission meeting in Strasbourg on 20 April. The plenary vote is scheduled for May 31st. «Then the trilogues between the Commission, the EU Council and the European Parliament will start – concludes De Castro -. I expect two more under the Swedish presidency and at least one under the Greek one and I hope that by September or October the reform will be definitively approved”.