On January 26, 2017, at the informal meeting of the WTO-TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) Committee, the U.S. and Canadian representations are preparing to take action against recent EU member country regulations on food origin labeling. The anticipation revealed by Dario Dongo, founder of Great Italian Food Trade, was relayed by Ansa.
The attack on Italian labels
The U.S. and Canadian attack on the indication of origin of raw materials aims to demolish both regulations that have already passed the European Commission’s scrutiny and draft regulations already notified to Brussels and still awaiting the green light. For Italian regulations, the targets are the interministerial decree 9.12.16 on the origin of milk and the draft decree on the origin of wheat.
France, Greece and other European countries also in the crosshairs
Also in the crosshairs of the U.S. and Canada are food origin regulations enacted in other European countries. This is the case with the laws passed in France on the origin of milk and the provenance of meat used as ingredients in other products; those of Lithuania and Portugal on milk, as well as similar measures in Greece (with the addition of rabbit meat) and Finland (on milk and meat used in other products).
“As early as November 2016, representatives from the United States and New Zealand, at the last meeting of the World Trade Organization’s TBT Committee,” says Dario Dongo, a food lawyer, “expressed serious concerns about national origin provisions and their potential impact on the international food commodities market.
