The EU has long sought to use its free-trade agreements to extend its system of Geographical Indications (GIs) and its trade talks with NZ have been no exception.
As part of the talks the European Commission has given NZ negotiators a list of 179 food names and hundreds more wine and spirit names linked to European places it says should be given legal protection over and above that provided by this country’s own system of GIs protecting names of wines and spirits introduced several years ago.
In an unusual move the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade last month, some eight months after negotiations started, asked for NZ producers to notify it of any objections to the EU proposals.
In a joint submission the Dairy Companies Association and the Specialist Cheesemakers Association registered their objections to 29 of the 59 dairy product (56 cheese and one cream and two types of butter) names the EU is claiming as GIs in the trade talks.
The submission said it had no problem with the legitimate use of GIs to protect products and methods of production uniquely linked to specific place names.
However, the European system of GIs goes beyond that and is being used to claim generic names such as feta and parmesan, long used by producers in NZ and around the world for the exclusive use of its own dairy industry.
“We have grown increasingly concerned that GI frameworks are being extended and misused beyond their original intent to unfairly monopolise longstanding, commonly used product names in global production,” it said.
By bending to the EU’s demands and accepting its system of GIs the NZ Government would be jeopardising significant investments made by the country’s dairy companies over many years in packaging, branding and processing assets.
The industry is also not convinced the Europeans would not use such an opportunity to claim more commonly-used names such as cheddar and edam, which make up a far greater proportion of NZ’s cheese revenue worth $1.8b in 2017.
Recognising the EU’s list of GIs would also make it harder for NZ to oppose restrictions on the use of the same names in export markets where the EU has also been able to secure free-trade deals, which outlawed the use of those names by non-European producers.
However, the submission said should NZ accept the EU’s demands to get a free-trade deal over the line then clear rules will be needed to limit the damage to local cheese-makers.
They include restricting protections for European producers to compound names such as Brie de Meaux and Parmigiano Reggiano but allowing local producers to continue using their generic names of brie and parmesan, respectively, for example.
GIs should also apply only to dairy products produced and supplied locally and not to NZ’s exports.
Dairy industry representatives have previously said they will have to think hard about giving up some of their longstanding opposition to GIs if that is matched by an offer by the EU to open up its heavily-protected markets to NZ exports.
However, the most recent offer by the EU failed to do that.
