PURPOSE: to approve the accession of the European Union to the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications.
NON-LEGISLATIVE ACT: Council Decision (EU) 2019/1754 on the accession of the European Union to the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications.
CONTENT: under this Decision, the accession of the European Union to the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on appellations of origin and geographical indications is hereby approved on behalf of the Union. The decision is linked to the Regulation laying down the rules under which the EU will exercise its rights and fulfil its obligations under the Geneva Act.
Seven Member States are parties to the Lisbon Agreement, namely Bulgaria (since 1975), the Czech Republic (since 1993), France (since 1966), Italy (since 1968), Hungary (since 1967), Portugal (since 1966) and Slovakia (since 1993). Three other Member States have signed the Lisbon Agreement but have not ratified it, namely Greece, Spain and Romania. The Union itself is not a party to the Lisbon Agreement as it provides that only countries can accede to it.
The Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications is a treaty administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Adopted on 20 May 2015, the Geneva Act is the revision of the Lisbon Agreement.
In particular, the Geneva Act extends the scope of the Lisbon Agreement to increase the protection of appellations of origin of products to all geographical indications within the meaning of the World Trade Organisation Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. It allows international organisations, such as the EU, to become contracting parties.
Each Contracting Party to the Geneva Act must protect in its territory the designations of origin and geographical indications of products originating in other Contracting Parties.
For certain agricultural products, the Union has put in place uniform and comprehensive protection regimes for geographical indications for wines (1970), spirits (1989), aromatised wines (1991) and other agricultural products and foodstuffs (1992). However, without accession, the Union and its Member States would not be able to benefit from the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement.
The Union's accession to the Geneva Act shall enable it to properly exercise its exclusive competence with regard to the areas covered by the Geneva Act and its functions under its comprehensive protection systems for agricultural designations of origin and geographical indications.
The Union should endeavour to regularise the issue of its voting rights in the Assembly of the Special Union of the Geneva Act in order to ensure its effective participation in the decision-making procedures. It is therefore appropriate that the Member States which wish to do so, should also be authorised to ratify or to accede to, as appropriate, alongside the Union the Geneva Act in the interest of the Union.
The Commission shall make all the necessary notifications under the Geneva Act on behalf of the Union and those Member States. The Commission shall be designated as the Competent Authority of the Geneva Act, responsible for the administration of the Geneva Act in the territory of the Union and for communications with the International Bureau of the WIPO under the Geneva Act and the Common Regulations under the Lisbon Agreement and the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement.
ENTRY INTO FORCE: 13.11.2019.