EU-WIDE PROTECTION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS FOR
NON-AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
SUMMARY REPORT OF THE PUBLIC CONSULTATION
Introduction
There is currently no EU-wide system for protecting the geographical indications of non-agricultural products (such as handicrafts and industrial goods). As announced by the IP action plan of 25 November 2020, the European Commission is considering the feasibility of creating an efficient and transparent EU GI protection system for non-agricultural products on the basis of a thorough impact assessment of its potential costs and benefits.
This public consultation invited citizens and organisations, and national and regional public authorities to contribute to the assessment of a geographical indications’ system for non-agricultural products. The aim was to gather views on the major challenges identified that would need to be addressed in the assessment, the set of policy options that could be envisaged to address these challenges and the impacts stemming from these different options. The results of the consultation will feed the impact assessment on the best way forward.
This summary report provides a factual brief of the responses received, as required by the European Commission Better Regulation Guidelines. Without prejudice to the in-depth analysis of the replies to all the questions raised in the public consultation, which will be presented in the relevant annex to the impact assessment, this factual brief observes overall preliminary trends focused on responses to questions covering the most crucial policy issues.
RESPONSES OF THE PUBLIC CONSULTATION
Disclaimer: The document does not assess the validity of the actual responses. The views expressed in the contributions received are those of the authors. Therefore, the content of this document cannot be regarded as reflecting the position of the Commission.
The consultation was open during 12 weeks between 29 April 2021 and 22 July 2021 via the EU Survey online system in 24 EU languages, and received 182 responses from 28 countries, including from 18 EU Member States.
ØIntroductory questions aimed at characterising respondents, including by geographical origin, stakeholder type and organisation size.
The majority of replies came from respondents in four EU Member States: Italy (44) and France (38), followed by Spain (24) and Germany (17).
Responses by country of origin:
As regards the type of respondents, the majority of replies (86,8%) came from companies/business organisations (68), business associations (35), public authorities (28) and EU citizens (27).
Responses by stakeholder type:
60% of the responses came from micro-size and small-size organisations (1 to 9 employees and 10 to 49 employees, respectively). 40% of the responses came from medium-size and large-size organisations (50 to 249 employees and 250 employees or more, respectively).
Responses by organisation size (153 replies):
ØQuestions 4-8 aimed at characterising responding producers of geographically rooted non-agricultural products (92 respondents), including by sector and sales activities.
More than one third of the responses in question came from the natural stones sector (33). Other key sectors were porcelain/ceramics (13) and cutlery (10), followed by furniture (6), textiles (6) and jewellery/stones (4). More than 20% of responses (20) came from various other sectors.
Responses by sector of producers of geographically rooted non-agricultural products:
As to the sales activities of responding producers of geographically rooted non-agricultural products, more than 70% of such respondents (68) sell their product(s) in both EU countries and non-EU countries, while about 17% of producers in question sell their product(s) in their country of origin and other EU countries. Only 3 respondents sell their products exclusively on their domestic market.
Responses by sales activities of producers of geographically rooted non-agricultural products:
ØQuestion 11 addressed respondents’ opinions as to the need for an EU-wide initiative to improve the protection of geographical names or indications for non-agricultural products.
A vast majority of respondents (92,3%=168) see the need for an EU-wide initiative to improve the protection of geographical names or indications for non-agricultural products. Only 3,8% of respondents (7) see no need for such initiative, while another 7 respondents expressed no specific view on the matter.
ØQuestion 12 aimed at characterising incentives to participate in an EU scheme for the protection of geographical indications for non-agricultural products (174 replies received), whereas Question 13 aimed at characterising disincentives (164 replies received).
As to the list of possible incentives, the ones specified in most replies were ‘better enforcement/ combatting misuse of protected name and fraud’ (in 89% of replies), ‘useful marketing tool /better visibility for consumers’ (in 80 % of replies) and ‘protection of tradition /cultural heritage’ (in 80 % of replies). As to the list of possible disincentives, the one specified in most replies (68%) was ‘administrative burden/ costs, for example related to the application’.
ØQuestion 14 sought the opinion of respondents as to their preferred overall policy approach regarding the possible creation of an EU-wide protection mechanism of geographical indications for non-agricultural products. The baseline of “No action” was set against five different policy options and respondents were asked to rate possible approaches from 5 (most preferred) to 1 (least preferred). (From 143 to 147 replies received depending on policy option.)
As the graph below demonstrates, the following basic trends can be observed as to the preferences among possible policy options:
-The most preferred policy option (rated 5) in the opinion of most respondents is a sui generis system establishing an EU title to protect GIs for industrial and handicraft products. The preference rate of the sui generis option (53,5% of the respondents on this option) is more than double as compared to the next-favoured options, namely the harmonisation option and the merger option (neither of which amount to 25% of the respondents on the respective option).
-The least preferred policy option (rated 1) in the opinion of most respondents is the baseline scenario of no action taken at EU level. More than 80% of respondents on this option are decisively against maintaining the current situation.
