UE : Question E-005399-17 de Nikolaos Chountis (GUE/NGL) - dénomination des variété olive KALAMATA

Niveau juridique : Union européenne

Texte de la question :

« The Ministerial Decision (MD) 3247/137259/6-12-2016 (Government Gazette 4044/16-12-2016) introduced the term ‘KALAMATA’ in the Greek Variety Register, as a synonym for the KALAMON olive variety.

This decision, effective ‘as of its date of publication in the Government Gazette’ would result in the designation of olive fruit coming from Greek and non-Greek regions outside the delimited area of the ‘Elia Kalamatas’ PDO, as ‘Elia Kalamatas’, completely against the provisions of Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 637/2009, leading to the unauthorised exploitation of the reputation of ‘Elia Kalamatas’ PDO and to misleading consumers.

MD 3247/137259 was replaced by MD 3401/144590 (Government Gazette 4460/30-12-2016), and the term ‘KALAMATA’ was removed as a synonym of the KALAMON variety in the Greek Register.

However, up to this day, nine months later, the EU Fruit Reproductive Material Information System (FRUMATIS) still lists ‘KALAMATA’ as a synonym of the ‘KALAMON’ variety, not to mention that this list was renewed on 6 December 2016!

Can the Commission say:

1. Under which procedures was KALAMATA introduced as a synonym of KALAMON in the FRUMATIS list, on the same day the MD was issued, without even being published in the Government Gazette?

2. Nine months later, why has KALAMATA not been removed from the FRUMATIS list, in accordance with Government Gazette 4460/30-12-2016?

3. Has the Commission been notified of this change by the Greek Government? »

Réponse :

« Answer given by Mr Andriukaitis on behalf of the Commission (20.10.2017)

1. Each Member State shall notify the Commission as soon as possible of the inclusion of a variety in its variety register of fruit plants1. On the basis of the information received, the Commission publishes in an electronic format a common list of the varieties included in the variety registers of the Member States, which is called Fruit Reproductive Material Information System (FRUMATIS)2.

2. Member States have the responsibility to inform the Commission as soon as possible of any changes to their variety registers, following which the information in FRUMATIS is updated.

3. The Greek competent authorities submitted their national variety register to FRUMATIS in accordance with the new EU rules laid down in Directive 2014/97/EU, which Member States have to apply as of 1 January 2017. However, they did not notify the Commission of the subsequent removal of the denomination “Kalamata” from their register. When the Commission was informed, an official letter was sent to the Greek competent authorities asking them to remove the denomination “Kalamata” from their national variety register. The Commission will update FRUMATIS upon reception of the amended variety register. »

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