EU, Prosecco or Prosek? Battle between Italy and Croatia for the protection of the name

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13 September 2021 The request made by Croatia for the protection of the traditional term

appears today in the Official Journal of the European Union

this means that the EU actually formalizes the start of the recognition of the denomination of the wine which recalls the Italian Prosecco.

A decision that Italy does not like, which is about to contest.

"The decision of the European Commission on the recognition of the protected geographical indication of Croatian wine Prosek is wrong. The Ministry has already opposed this recognition and will use every useful argument to reject the registration application promoted by Croatia, even appealing to the principles of protection expressed by the Court of Justice in similar cases, such as in the very recent case of the

Spanish

". Thus the

in a note. 

However, the European Commission has assessed "compliance with the eligibility and validity requirements" of the "application for protection of the traditional term Prosek submitted by Croatia" and "will now proceed to its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union". 

In any case, "all interested parties will have two months from the date of publication to submit a reasoned objection," said the Agriculture Commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, in response to a parliamentary question submitted by over twenty MEPs, almost all Italians and members of various parties.

The parliamentarians turned to the Commission on 15 July as they were concerned about the similarity between the names

, which could mislead consumers and damage Made in Italy wine. Before the final recognition of the IGP wine, the Commission "will analyze any objections received and will take a final decision on the application taking into account all the elements at its disposal".     

However, the Commissioner for Agriculture specified, "

is not considered a sufficient reason to reject an application", the commissioner recalled, and "two homonymous terms can coexist under certain conditions, in particular taking due account of local customs and traditional and of the risk that the consumer could get confused ".

According to Wojciechowski, "the rules guarantee fairness and fairness between all parties and aim to avoid labeling that mislead consumers".   

"I have no words to comment on what happened. We don't know what to do with this Europe. A Europe that does not defend the identity of its territories, a Europe that should know the history of prosecco". This is how the president of the Veneto Region Luca Zaia comments on the news of the publication of Croatia's request for protection of the traditional term "Prosek",

"The matter is by no means over: from when the request from Prosek will be published in the European Official Journal, we will have 60 days to present our observations": Stefano Zanette, president of the Prosecco Doc Consortium, underlines the matter relating to the request for advanced recognition to the EU by the Croatian Prosek.