Karine Gloanec-Maurin (PES, French), rapporteur for the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), was, on Tuesday 8 November, rather in favour of delegating additional tasks to the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) for the examination of applications for the protection of geographical indications (GIs).
“The delegation of part of the examination of files to the EUIPO, which has real expertise in this area, as I was able to see during my study visit to Alicante, should make it possible to shorten the time taken to process files," Ms Gloanec-Maurin told MEPs of the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture.
In addition, the EUIPO has “powerful tools that can be used by GIs to improve their control and the fight against fraud”, she said.
The European Parliament rapporteur, Paolo De Castro (S&D, Italian), was somewhat less critical than most of his colleagues (see EUROPE 13059/23). He stressed that the EUIPO can make a “very important contribution” to the protection and promotion of GIs. The EUIPO could thus, in his view, properly protect GIs by registering domains, supporting the Commission in opposition proceedings, developing a European register for GIs, supporting cancellation proceedings, and organising networks that would bring together national authorities to share best practices.
On sustainability, the CoR advocates for a voluntary approach, “capable of recognising and promoting the contribution of GIs to sustainability and, on the other hand, of supporting and encouraging producers and producer groups to become more involved in this sustainable transition”.
Lastly, Karine Gloanec-Maurin agreed with the proposal to encourage producer groups to better structure themselves in order to work efficiently.
Her draft opinion was unanimously adopted on 5 October by the Commission for Natural Resources and will be submitted to the CoR plenary session on 30 November.
See the draft opinion: https://aeur.eu/f/3yw (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)