Agricultural products and foodstuffs: designations of origin, geographical indications (repeal. Regulation (EEC) No 2081/92)

The European Parliament adopted a resolution drafted by Friedrich-Wilhelm GRAEFE zu BARINGDORF (Greens/EFA, DE) and made some amendments to the Commission’s proposal:

- The place of origin and the place of processing of each agricultural product or foodstuff marketed under a name registered in accordance with the Regulation shall be clearly and visibly indicated on the label.

- The Community symbols shall be distinguished by means of colour codes specific to each symbol.

- To qualify as a PDO, a product should be not only produced, processed and prepared in the defined geographical area, as stated in the proposal, but also, where appropriate, packaged in that area.

- Parliament adopted a clearer definition of ‘geographical indication': "an indication or the name of a region, of a specific place or of a country serving to describe and/or identify an agricultural product or foodstuff".

- After an appropriate transitional period, and at any rate no later than ten years after the entry into force of the Regulation, all production, preparation or processing activities must take place within the defined geographical area. If raw materials come from a geographical area larger than or different from the processing area, this may be approved by means of the specified procedure, provided that: the production area of the raw materials is defined; special conditions for the production of the raw materials exist, and there are inspection arrangements to ensure that the conditions referred to in the regulation are adhered to.

- The registration must be published on the Internet as well as the OJ.

- Rightholders may lodge complaints with their national monitoring body and ask that it intervene to protect their registered name.

- A list of the monitoring bodies will be published in the OJ and be regularly updated.

- For a period of five years from the date of announcement of cancellation of registration in the OJ, the protected name may not be used for registration as a trademark pursuant to Council Regulation 40/94/EC.

- If a processed product contains an agricultural product or foodstuff that has been registered under the Regulation, the use of the relevant expression on the label of the processed product must be subject to the specific authorisation of the group that obtained recognition.

- Where agricultural products or foodstuffs benefit from a protected designation of origin or a protected geographical indication, other geographical terms which are included in the protected geographical area may not be used on similar products not covered by that protected designation of origin or protected geographical indication.