The rules, which were drawn up by EP Agriculture Committee MEPs and Council negotiators in June, would cut the time limit for the European Commission’s response to a registration request from 12 to six months.
Voting in favour at the plenary session last week, MEPs agreed this would empower food producers’ groups to “protect their proprietary names and promote the authenticity and reputation of their products”.
“This regulation will help both farmers and customers. Simpler registration procedures will encourage farmers to register their products and ingredients with quality labels schemes and thus to better explain the added value of their products to customers, who will then be able to make more informed choices,”said Spanish socialist MEP and rapporteur Iratxe García Pérez.
The new rules include a stricter definition for the “traditional speciality guaranteed” (TSG) label, with the time that the product must have been used on the domestic market extended from 25 to 30 years, and recipes protected as well as production methods.
The introduction of a new ‘mountain’ label is also expected, with a label for ‘island’ produce likely to follow a year later.
MEPs rejected a proposal to allow producers’ groups to establish a system to manage the volume of their protected products, but Pérez said that “the debate on supply management will continue as a part of the discussion on the Common Agricultural Policy reform”.
