Naming restrictions threaten sales to EU

By KEVIN TAYLOR

When is feta not feta?

When Europe makes rules saying so - unless you are Greek.

Trade law experts say tighter European Union labelling regulations and tougher rules on use of placenames may affect exports from countries such as New Zealand.

New EU wine labelling rules being introduced on January 1 could, if mirrored in the dairy sector, force New Zealand cheese makers to abandon the name "feta" on exports to the bloc.

Trade lawyers Murray Denyer and Scott Gallacher, of Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, told Weekend Business that moves were afoot in the EU to reserve the term feta cheese only for Greece.

Countries outside the EU would be prohibited from exporting "feta" cheese to the bloc, despite the fact that the word was in common use.

Wine terms such as "oak-aged", "reserve" and "noble" are also under threat, and the New Zealand wine industry may have to prove to European regulators that approved European methods are used in the production of wine.

Use of the word champagne, a French wine-growing region, has already been stamped out in New Zealand and Australia.

But Denyer said the latest moves showed that had only been the "thin end of the wedge".

The new regulations showed that the efforts being made in Brussels to protect so-called "geographical indicators" were being widened.

"Our wine industry and most other third countries are going to face increased problems getting their wine into Europe."

The pair warned that other New Zealand industries should also check whether they might be affected by the EU regulations.

Gallacher said the new rules would cost New Zealand either way - complying with the regulations or losing markets.

The moves were all about protecting EU producers.

"It's just in the past few years we are starting to see the full agenda."

Gallacher, who has worked in the New Zealand World Trade Organisation mission in Geneva, said the regulations could be fought through the WTO.

A spokeswoman for Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton said the Government had long been concerned about geographical indicators and the minister would raise the issue with the European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy in Auckland today.



Fonterra lawyer Joan Wright said everybody viewed with concern the EU's moves. Geographical indicators would create problems for any food industry, not just the New Zealand dairy industry.

She said cheeses were made throughout the world with common names such as feta, and any suggestion that industry could not use those names would be viewed with concern. Consumers would also be worried.

Fonterra was supporting the Government's efforts to try to contain the spread of geographical indicator regulations.

New Zealand Wine Growers chief executive officer Philip Gregan said the regulations would require production terms to be defined - in the exporting country's regulations.

That could stifle New Zealand's innovative wine industry, which had been able to succeed because it had not been "hog-tied by regulation".

"They are trying to protect their own producers by forcing their regulatory system on other countries."

He said the wine label rules were an example of what other industries exporting to the EU could expect.