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Olive oil, Italy gains from EU "origin" on labels
Italy
Wednesday 11 June 2008
Italy welcomes enthusiastically the decision, taken on 6 June in Bruxelles, to require on olive oil labels the indication of origin, meeting Italy’s request made to the EU Committee for olive oil management. Italian Farmers’ Confederation (CIA) conveys this feeling in a recent note.
“EU’s decision confirms the legitimacy of a choice about labels that Italy has already implemented”, CIA’s note stresses. “It is a protection of producers and consumers’ interests for which CIA has always struggled peremptorily”.
The indication of origin on olive oil labels - which has been adopted in Italy since long time and whose expansion to the EU was backed and envisaged by Agriculture commissioner Fischer Boel - is a fundamental mean, CIA points out, to defend the productions from counterfeits and agro-piracy. “It is the right response to the consumers’ claim for transparency and quality. At the same time, it is an important step for the defence of Italian olive growing that has invested so much in quality and has lately been damaged by the diffusion of products passed of as Italian, which are instead a mix of various oils from different origins”.
CIA’s wish is that the EU technical committee’s proposal can be finally approved at the next EU ministerial council.
“EU’s decision confirms the legitimacy of a choice about labels that Italy has already implemented”, CIA’s note stresses. “It is a protection of producers and consumers’ interests for which CIA has always struggled peremptorily”.
The indication of origin on olive oil labels - which has been adopted in Italy since long time and whose expansion to the EU was backed and envisaged by Agriculture commissioner Fischer Boel - is a fundamental mean, CIA points out, to defend the productions from counterfeits and agro-piracy. “It is the right response to the consumers’ claim for transparency and quality. At the same time, it is an important step for the defence of Italian olive growing that has invested so much in quality and has lately been damaged by the diffusion of products passed of as Italian, which are instead a mix of various oils from different origins”.
CIA’s wish is that the EU technical committee’s proposal can be finally approved at the next EU ministerial council.
