Agenzie

European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture adopted on Thursday 20 April in Strasbourg its position amending the proposal on geographical indications for agricultural products.
The report by Paolo de Castro (S&D, Italian), including 46 agreed compromise amendments (https://aeur.eu/f/6ea ), was adopted unanimously (46 votes for, none against and no abstentions).
The amended proposal concerns the registration and protection of geographical indications (GIs) for wine, spirit drinks and agricultural products (see EUROPE 13154/8).
“Parliament continues to develop a system that is unique in the world, capable of generating value without the need to invest public funds, strengthening the role of producer organisations, the protection of PDOs and PGIs and transparency towards consumers”, welcomed Paolo De Castro.
To better protect GIs online, MEPs introduced provisions to ensure that all domains abusing the name of a GI are automatically shut down or assigned to a producer group that uses the GI legally. The European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) should set up an alert system to monitor the registration of domain names.
The other tasks that the European Commission wanted to assign to the EUIPO in relation to the examination of applications for GI protection have been removed. MEPs want the Commission, with its unique agricultural expertise, to continue managing the GI system, rather than the EUIPO.
As a general rule, producers of processed products are prohibited from using a GI in the name of their product containing a GI ingredient, unless authorized by a producer group.
Simplified procedure. MEPs reduced the time limit for the Commission to register a new GI from six to five months and limit the extension period to a maximum of three months, and only in duly justified cases.
National authorities should handle most requests for changes to existing GI registrations without further verification by the Commission. 
Sustainability. Producers will be able to explain their commitment to social and environmental sustainability in publicly available reports. 
MEPs want recognised producer groups to be given more responsibilities, such as setting minimum conditions for the use of a GI name or supervising the fair use of GIs. Recognised producer groups should also be able to receive mandatory financial contributions from all producers of the GI product.
Wine. The European Federation of Origin Wines (EFOW) calls on Parliament to support in May “this strong mandate that strengthens GIs and preserves the specificities of European appellation wines”. Wine comes within the scope of the GI Regulation while certain provisions will remain in the common market organisation (sustainability, labelling, generic terms, etc.). “This compromise satisfies the vast majority of the wine sectors”, noted Irène Tolleret (Renew Europe, French). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)