38 WINE LAW on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)11, following the Marrakech Agreement, within the GATT negotiations – a body that evolved into the World Trade Organization (WTO). In this last agreement, European GIs were deemed to free world trade. Interestingly, the reform of a 2006 EU regulation was driven substantially by international commitments. The concrete terms of the protection afforded by this legal framework are discussed on a regular basis12. Equally, the legal nature of designations of origin, traditionally viewed as a private-law notion, may pose some difficulty in getting a full grasp of it. Should we not rather view it as a public-law concept? There is yet another element, closely linked to the thoroughness of the formulation of DOs, over which full agreement has not been reached in European Law: its scope. In Spain, before this legal status was subsumed into European law, from the challenge launched at the Constitutional Court against the act passed by the regional parliament in Galicia on the protection of ornamental stones and the subsequent ruling 211/1990, it can be concluded that an issue such as the scope of these designations is not, by any means, irrelevant or immaterial as those stones were eventually found to be within its scope. We shall see how this plays out within the European legal frontiers. The aforementioned case reveals two further challenges arising out of the geographical indications for European law if we are to consider their fundamental purpose of establishing a single European market: the coexistence or replacement of the system fashioned by the European Union and those by the Member States, on the one hand, and, on the other, the threats to the Union by virtue of the devolution of powers regarding designations of origin (see the Spanish context). Lastly, for the sake of the preservation of food quality and fair competition, we should consider another substantial legal challenge, that of public oversight over products under the government’s remit. Let us discuss each of these issues separately. 11 For further detail on this and other issues, see PRIETO ÁLVAREZ, T. (2019). La denominación de origen. Análisis crítico de una institución jurídico-pública, Comares, Granada. 12 Regarding the fundamental international dimension of designations of origin, see: LUPONE, A. (2009). “Il dibattito sulle indicazione geografiche nel sistema multilaterale degli scambi: del Doha round dell’Organizzazione Mondiale del Commercio alla protezione Trips plus”, in UBERTAZZI, B. & MUÑIZ ESPADA, E. (eds.), Le indicazioni di qualità degli alimenti. Diritto internazionale ed europeo, Giuffrè Editore, Milán, p. 36; and, in the same work, COSCIA, G. “Il rapport fra sistema internazionali e comunitari sulla protezione delle indicazioni di qualità”, p. 43.
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