The committee adopted the report by Friedrich-Wilhelm GRAEFE zu BARINGDORF (Greens/EFA, DE) broadly approving the proposed regulation on traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG) agricultural products, subject to a few amendments under the consultation procedure:
- with regard to the extension of the regulation's scope to cover products from third countries, the committee said that, to ensure that there is no confusion in consumers' minds between the Community symbol and the origin of the product, the place of origin and the place of processing of each registered TSG product should be "clearly and visibly" indicated on the label;
- the proposed definition of "traditional" should be amended so as to mean "a product which has proven specific characteristics which distinguish it from other similar products in the same category and which has been used on the market since before the Second World War", which is regarded worldwide as a landmark period;
- the Commission's register of TGS products should be published on the Internet so as to make it easily accessible to consumers and producers;
- the names to be used in registering TSG products must not, under any circumstances, include names which have already been registered as products of designated origin (PDOs) or products of geographical indication (PGIs), which are the subject of a separate regulation (see factfile CNS/2005/0275);
- the committee laid down specific deadlines for various stages of the registration procedure, to avoid unnecessary delays;
- the use of the registered TSG expression for processed products should be subject to authorisation from the group that obtained recognition.