The Council and European Parliament has recently reached a provisional deal on the regulation for non-agri GIs, which aims to establish directly applicable GI protection for craft and industrial products at the EU level.

As indicated in the official press release here, the political agreement:

- “guarantees the coherence with GI protection rules for agricultural products by applying the concept of ‘protected geographical indications’ (PGIs), which ensures that GIs are attractive for producers maintaining a strong link between the product’s characteristics and its geographical origin;

- provides for efficient control and verification procedures for the protection of GIs with a system based on self-declaration as the default procedure that member states reinforce with controls;

- ensures that the protection of craft and industrial GIs also applies to the domain name space and the online environment;

- facilitates procedures for the registration of GIs, in particular for SMEs, while ensuring a high level of legal protection with EUIPO playing an important role on the registration procedures for craft and industrial GIs.”

The provisional deal will need to be endorsed and formally adopted by both institutions.

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ECTA is following closely the GI reforms ongoing in the EU and has contributed regularly with the help of our dedicated GI Committee during the public consultations on GI and non-agri GI topics in the recent years. ECTA is also regularly holding GI related events and discussions, including, most recently, the ECTA Alicante Round Table in March 2023 on GI reform, and a session dedicated to non-agri GIs during the upcoming ECTA Annual Conference in Prague in June 2023.