03/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - A Coldiretti press release reports that European Commissioner Pascal Lamy has written to Coldiretti President Paolo Bedoni and to Jean-Michel Lemétayer, FNSEA President, assuring them that rapid progress in the setting up of a multilateral register in the framework of the WTO for wine and alcoholic drinks is a priority for the European Union and that the aim was for the register to have legally binding content. According to Coldiretti, this is also important for EU/US relations since it is in the US that there is the highest concentration of the improper use of imitations of traditional EU food products and also of words, colours, places, images and denominations referring to our country but not having anything to do with our production and causing billions of euros in damage to our exports. Coldiretti welcomed this commitment to defend Italian specialities from "agri-pirating".