The EU’s drawn-out negotiation of a free trade agreement (FTA) with Australia has become a flashpoint for its efforts to push the bloc’s expansive recognition of geographical indicators (GI) onto third countries.

The 17th round of talks in July marked five years of negotiations without a deal. The main deadlock is Australia’s demands for deep market access for its agricultural products. But another point on which the two sides are yet to agree is the EU’s requirement that Australia stop describing its food and wine using terms that refer to regional specialties from designated areas within Europe under the EU’s GI regime.

This has caused a stir in Australia, where a public consultation on the initial request that Canberra protect 450 of Europe’s GIs — including those widely adopted by Aussie food and wine makers such as feta and prosecco — sparked more than 400 objections.

Canberra has made clear that in negotiating the FTA with its third-biggest trade partner, its stance on the issue is being shaped by this industry feedback. Yet every FTA the EU has entered into since 2009 has included recognition of several GIs. “This is a red line for the EU,” said Martijn Huysmans, an associate professor at ​​Utrecht University in the Netherlands who has published studies on the role of GIs within trade agreements.

“They won’t do a trade deal without at least some of these GIs being protected.”

The EU’s latest trade pact, which it signed with Australia’s closest neighbour, New Zealand, on July 9, includes protection of 1976 of the bloc's GIs. Brussels made some concessions, such as allowing New Zealand’s cheese makers that have described their produce as ‘​gruyère’ and ‘parmesan’ for at least five years to continue to do so. Meanwhile local producers have five years to stop using terms like ‘prosecco’, ‘sherry’ and ‘gorgonzola’. New Zealand’s producers must stop using all other European GIs listed in the FTA immediately. 

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Gastronationalism

The backlash in Australia has focused on feta, a widely consumed cheese in a country with a large Greek diaspora, and prosecco. Local production of the sparkling wine made famous by northeast Italy has grown in recent years and now generates A$200m ($135m) in sales each year. 

Australia’s argument is that ‘prosecco’ referred to a grape variety until 2009, when the EU registered the phrase as a GI and the grape was renamed to ‘glera’.

This point is being pushed by trade group Australian Grape & Wine. Its CEO, Lee McLean, said protecting the prosecco GI “would not only do enormous damage to the livelihoods of Australian prosecco producers, but would also set a very dangerous precedent for other grape variety names in the future”.

The EU’s hard line on GIs is driven in part by the need for all FTAs to be approved by its 27 member states. This includes countries internationally renowned for their cuisine, such as France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, which collectively account for over 70% of the bloc’s GIs. 

In Italy and Greece, ratification of the EU’s FTA with Canada, which was signed in 2016, has been delayed by concerns over insufficient protection of its food specialties. In 2020. Cyprus’s parliament refused to ratify the agreement because it failed to include the island’s iconic cheese, halloumi. 

According to the European Commission, annual sales of the bloc’s GI products amount to €74.8bn per year. But Mr Huysmans’s research has found that many southern European countries push Brussels to gain FTA protection for products with low turnovers and export levels. “It has become a type of ‘gastro-nationalism’. They are proud of their food, and so want to protect products even if they aren’t economically important and won’t generate significant trade,” he said.