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Originally Posted by Pacifier
Has anyone a good article about how this started and what it is about?
The article in this threads confuse me. Normally the EU is very concerned about certain names (like the already mentioned "Parma" or "champange")
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Without digging into it further, my best stab at the roots of this would be that the EU created some legislation protecting local growers in order to incentivize the smaller countries to become member states.
Given the spokeperson's statement that the EU was not opposed to the US use of geographical indicatators, and that they welcomed the WTO's ruling, it's likely that the legislation was pro-EU and not anti-US. That is, the inability of the US to use GI's was probably some legal snafu as a consequence of the legislation passed earlier that appeased economically weaker members, like Greece, to ease their integration into the larger EU market. A method to retain a semblence of history and sovereignty (or autonomy if you prefer), not much more than that.
Now it appears that one can make hay about this and read the decision as the WTO siding with the US against the EU (or even against France, as one poster seems to be willing to believe). However, its far more likely the EU and US parties were in agreement before the WTO court and requested similar judgement. Without reading the pleadings, we don't know, but my interpretation seems reasonable given the commentary following the ruling.
Or it could be something much deeper (as the case of the Budweiser animosity demonstrates) and Florida Oranges is just an extreme example being used to galvanize people on the wrong side of the debate. As in, we may agree that farmers in Florida should be able to label their oranges as "Florida Oranges," but the EU laws already appeared to have protected that distinction. What they didn't protect was "Florida Oranges" being grown in California.
May not make much difference in agribusiness, but in at least some of the foods there are hundreds if not thousands of years of technique behind the production of particular commodities. Their taste, reputation, and prestige belong to the orignal technique, not to be bestowed upon mass manufacturing that may or may not meet the standards of the traditional method, in my opinion.