Brussels, 30/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - The next trialogue meeting on quality agricultural products, scheduled for mid-October, promises to be rather contentious because of differences on a number of important points. The issues that could cause conflict broached at the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) meeting on Monday 26 September related to the creation of a system for direct sales and local production, banning registration of a product as a TSG (traditional speciality guaranteed) if the name of the product has become a “generic term”, and managing supply of PGI (protected geographical indication) and PDO (protected designation of origin) products.
On Monday of next week, the SCA will discuss the “marketing standards” section of the “quality” package.
Generic term/TSG. At the last SCA meeting, most member states opposed the proposal put by the Polish Presidency that a product should not be allowed to be listed as a TSG if its name has become a generic term. Currently, products cannot be registered as PDO or PGI once their names are considered to have become generic. The Presidency wants products whose names have become generic terms not to be eligible for registration as TSGs either. A small group of countries, including Italy, Romania, Germany, Austria and Hungary, are tending to favour the Presidency text.
Local production and direct sales. There is a small group of countries (including Germany, Spain, Denmark and Sweden) - able, at the moment, to form a blocking minority - which is against special arrangements and specific labelling for local products and the direct sale of products. These countries would prefer the European Parliament (EP) approach calling on the Commission to conduct a study before any legislative proposals are brought forward. Among the countries which support these arrangements for local products and direct sales, many have called for them to be voluntary.
Restricting production. A broad majority (more than 15) of the delegations in the SCA reject the Parliamentary amendment allowing producers' organisations to restrict the scale of production for PDO and PGI quality products. The countries most in favour of the amendment are Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Malta. (LC/transl.rt)