Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-27-Speech-2-046"
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"en.20050927.5.2-046"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the recent European Union-United States agreement is only a first step – and certainly an inadequate and insufficient one – towards the international recognition and safeguarding of protected traditional names. It was time to change course after the harmful effects of the infamous Regulation (EC) No 316/2004, which effectively authorised producers in non-EU countries to make improper use of protected traditional names, thus causing enormous damage to quality wine production, both in Italy and, of course, in Europe as a whole.
Commissioner Fischer Boel also stated in this Chamber that the agreement protects European names and will safeguard the European Union’s largest export market. There is no doubt that those are the aims to be achieved; doubt remains, however, as to whether the agreement is the right basis on which to achieve such aims.
It is indeed true that the US Administration will put a bill before Congress to change the status and limit the use of 17 European names currently considered semi-generic in the United States, but it is also true that the United States will still be able to use 14 Community traditional names, although subject to certain conditions and for a limited period of time. In fact, the hoary question of the ongoing misuse of names has still not been settled once and for all.
On the other hand, the United States has undertaken to accept the basic principles of the Community’s labelling rules and will seek to resolve any bilateral issues relating to the wine trade through informal bilateral consultations rather than through dispute settlement mechanisms.
What is the most worrying concession made by the European Union? Well, under the agreement, the European Union recognises the wine-making practices of US wine producers. Substantially, what that means is that the EU can import wine diluted with 7% of added water or flavoured with wood chips, practices that our producers, of course, are absolutely forbidden to use. That will result in a serious threat to wines of excellence and a major upset in the wine market.
Although we have succeeded in providing a certain stability for wine exports to the United States, not least through the easing of procedures, we have at all events gone too far on wine-making practices and we do not yet have sufficient guarantees regarding the misuse of protected names.
Mr President, the agreement includes the commitment that negotiations for an even more thorough agreement will start 90 days after it enters into force. In this regard, we ask that the talks focus on the effective protection of traditional names. We believe that, during the talks, the Commission should above all try to obtain a final commitment from the US authorities to put an end to the illicit use in the United States of geographical indications protected by Community legislation within two years at most.
I shall conclude by pointing out that the agreement and the extraordinary derogation for US imports could be used by other WTO member states to claim similar treatment, thus opening the floodgates to imports of dubious origin and composition. Faced with this situation, the European Union must take action with more vigorous measures in order to defend its production of traditional quality wines. We should make a fresh start by actually repealing Regulation (EC) No 316/2004, which liberalised the use of protected traditional names, thus creating unfair competition and misleading consumers as to the origin and quality of products."@en1
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