Luxembourg, 09/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Champagne borough council in the Vaud Canton in Switzerland, together with its winegrowers, will not to give up the "Champagne" label in two years and have taken the case to the European Court of First Instance. They are demanding that the "Champagne clause" be removed from the EU/Swiss agreement applied in the EU following the decision of the Council and Commission on 4 April 2002. The Council and its winegrowers are claiming a breach in the main principles of the law, such as the right to an owner's identity and the ability to freely carry out one's professional activities. Other arguments include: Swiss Champagne is a white wine that does not compete with French Champagne and an appropriate label indicating the country of origin would be enough to dispel any confusion. This production enjoys a local label of origin in keeping, and protected by Swiss law thus, according to Swiss winegrowers, constitutes industrial and commercial ownership. The borough of Champagne produces around 300,000 bottles of white wine on 400 hectares of land of which 140,000 are traded under the Vaudois "Champagne" label. This production goes back thousands of years and the Champagne name is quite ancient. The "Champagne" clause was introduced at France's request within the framework of EU/Swiss bilateral negotiations concluded at a political level on 11 December 1998 (see EUROPE 10 December 1998). Swiss winegrowers and the borough of Champagne are also claiming for damages and interest.
The "Codorniu" decision
The Swiss are going to have to complete the admissibility of their claim. EUROPE would like to point out that in the Jégo-Quéré decision (see EUROPE 6/7 May 2002 p 16), the Court of First Instance wanted to give individuals and companies what it regarded to have been a real success in the European courts and what the European court of Justice had refused the "Union de Pequeños Agricultores" in its decision (see EUROPE 26 July p 17). Conditions of access to the Court are therefore very strict but legal experts pointed out that the Swiss could receive assistance from the Court itself which, in 1994, reached the "Codorniu" decision (the Court took more than four years to reach this decision in a case that was submitted in 1989, the year in which the Court and not the Court of first Instance which had just been set up - was given the remit for deciding litigation between companies and individuals versus Community institutions: Editor's note). The Spanish company Codorniu produced a "sparkling" white wine using the brand name, "Gran Creman de Codorniu" registered in 1924. A Community regulation of 1989 stated that Cordorniu traditionally used this brand and was individually and directly affected by the regulation and therefore could have access to the European courts. In fact Cordorniu even managed to obtain the cancellation of the 1989 regulation.