The House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the Draft Law on the Protection of Geographical Indications along with amendments that exempted food products from its scope. This eliminated the danger of overlapping regulations and preserved the existing system of protection of indigenous food products, which was previously warned by the Food Safety Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Food Safety Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced that by adopting the amendments to the Draft Law on the Protection of Geographical Indications, the legal and institutional consequences that, according to their assessments, would have arisen if the law had been adopted in its original form were prevented.
At the 52nd session of the Constitutional Law Commission of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, three amendments were adopted, which then became an integral part of the law adopted at the session of the House of Representatives on July 22.
The key amendment stipulates that the provisions of the Law on the Protection of Geographical Origin Marks do not apply to the registration of marks of origin, geographical origin and guaranteed traditional specialty food products, since that area is already regulated by the Food Law.
According to the BiH Food Safety Agency, this amendment has removed the possibility of legal uncertainty and collision between the new law, the Food Law and the Rulebook on Quality Systems for Food Products.
The agency previously warned that the adoption of the law without changes could jeopardize the results achieved so far in the system of protection of indigenous food products and slow down European integration in this area.
In her address to the representatives, she stated that 24 food products with protected labels have been registered in Bosnia and Herzegovina so far, including Livanjski cheese, the first product from a country that is not a member of the European Union entered in the European Register of Geographical Indications eAmbrosia.
At the same time, extra virgin olive oil from Herzegovina, Gatač cream from the mixture and Travnica cheese are in the process of registration of the designation of geographical origin at the level of the European Union.
The agency also warned that the original text of the law would deviate from European practice, according to which requests for registration of geographical origin labels are submitted by groups of producers, while the proposed solutions in BiH would enable submission of requests by other entities, such as chambers of commerce, consumer associations and different levels of government.
It was also pointed out that in the countries of the European Union, competent institutions from the agriculture and food sector are responsible for this area, while the original proposal provided for the registration to be conducted by the Institute for Intellectual Property.
According to the Agency, the adoption of the amendment preserves the existing system established through the cooperation of the Food Safety Agency of BiH, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, entity institutions, Brčko District and international partners, including the European Commission and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
FAO previously singled out Bosnia and Herzegovina as a positive example among the countries of Europe and Central Asia in the establishment of a system of protection of designations of geographical origin for food products, writes Acts.
