Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Agriculture — Uniform laws — Protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs — Use of a protected designation of origin subject to the condition that operations such as slicing and packaging of the product take place in the region of production — Whether permissible — (Council Regulation No 2081/92)

2. Free movement of goods — Quantitative restrictions of experts — Measures having equivalent effect — Use of the protected designation of origin Prosciutto di Parma subject, under a Community measure, to the condition that the product is sliced and packaged in the region of production — Justification — Protection of industrial and commercial property — Measure that is necessary and proportionate and capable of upholding the reputation of the designation of origin — Whether condition may be relied on against economic operators — Not in the absence of adequate publicity — (Arts 29 EC and 30 EC; Commission Regulation No 1107/96)

Summary

1. Regulation No 2081/92 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs must be interpreted as not precluding the use of a protected designation of origin from being subject to the condition that operations such as the slicing and packaging of the product take place in the region of production, where such a condition is laid down in the specification.

The wording of Article 4 of that regulation, which makes eligibility to use a protected designation of origin subject to the products's compliance with a specification and gives a non-exhaustive list of the items to be included in the specification, does not exclude the application of special technical rules to operations leading to different presentations on the market of the same product, so that in each case it can satisfy the criterion of quality to which consumers have in recent years tended to attach greater importance, and guarantee an identifiable geographical origin.

see paras 43-44, 48, 50, operative part 1

2. The fact that Regulation No 1107/96, registering inter alia the protected designation of origin "Prosciutto di Parma" , makes the use of that designation for ham marketed in slices subject to the condition that slicing and packaging operations be carried out in the region of production has the specific effect of restricting patterns of exports of ham eligible for that designation and thereby establishing a difference in treatment between the domestic trade of a Member State and its export trade, and thus constitutes a measure having equivalent effect to a quantitative restriction on exports within the meaning of Article 29 EC.

Such a condition may, however, be regarded as justified on grounds of the protection of industrial and commercial property, and hence compatible with Article 29 EC, since its aim is to preserve the reputation of Parma ham by strengthening control over its particular characteristics and its quality, thus constituting a measure protecting the designation which may be used by all the operators concerned and is of decisive importance to them, and since the resulting restriction may be regarded as necessary for attaining the objective pursued, in that there are no alternative less restrictive measures capable of attaining it.

However, the condition in question cannot be relied on against economic operators, as it was not brought to their attention by adequate publicity in Community legislation.

see paras 58-59, 78-79, 81, 99, operative part 2-3