DESIGNATIONS OF ORIGIN WITHIN THE EU: LEGAL CHALLENGES 53 provided for by EU’s law is the one established in the Regulations discussed, the relevant registration of the names protected being required. The European system has then taken over, exclusively, the safeguarding of those designations within its natural scope. A scope that the preamble to current Regulation No 1151/2012 defines: “The scope for designations of origin and geographical indications should be limited to products for which an intrinsic link exists between product or foodstuff characteristics and geographical origin” (introductory statement 17). The issue brought up may be resolved: DOs provided for in the Regulation relating to designations of quality agricultural products and foodstuffs – both in the current 2012 Regulation and the previous ones – replace national regulations, insofar as they seek to protect products whose quality is linked to its origin. National regulations will have to limit themselves to regulating necessary procedural matters. At this stage, it might be appropriate to discuss the exhaustiveness of the European protection system for designations of wine and spirit drinks. Until recently, it seemed well-established that the view – upheld by various court judgements at the time – that the exhaustiveness of the European protection system of “ordinary” designations of origin (meaning those of agricultural products and foodstuffs in the current 2012 Regulation) could not be passed onto the protection system of geographical designations of wines and spirit drinks. It might be worth noting the modification on the part of the European Court of Justice as it heard the Port Charlotte case – a rectification which appears to be a most reasonable adaptation of the current legislation’s true aims. To start with, the content of Regulation No 479/2008 sought to replace national systems for the protection of designations within the internal wine market with the European one, and the same would be true of the current regulation. As established by introductory statement 29 of the 2008 Regulation, Regulation 1308/2013 (currently regulating these designations) argues, in introductory statement 94, that “to qualify for protection in the Union, designations of origin and geographical indications for wine should be recognised and registered at the Union level in accordance with procedural rules laid down by the Commission”. Should anyone be tempted to think that the uniformity and exclusivity of the protection system of designations of origin covered by European law had been treated evenly, no matter the scope of the designation, we should affirm that that has not always been the case. As far as wine and spirit drinks designations are concerned, we have witnessed a great deal of swaying on the Courts’ part. It has been questioned whether these designations may be as comprehensive as the “ordinary” ones or if such protection might be
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