World Food Policy
tute for Origin and Quality (INAO) in
France 3 —the application is then exam-
ined by the Directorate General for Ag-
riculture of the EU Commission.
troduced by the 2006 regulation, marks
the inclusion of PDO/PGI in the gen-
eral standards for product certification
(Gonzales Vaque 2006). Member States
In 2006, the EU Regulation was that choose a public entity to verify
amended 4 to enable foreign GIs to ben- compliance with the specifications must
efit from protection within the EU and offer adequate guarantees of objectivity
to introduce third-party certification, and impartiality.
as defined in the EU food law. The reg-
ulation was again amended in 2012, to
merge all quality certifications for food. 1.2 The French case
The general EU food law principles re-
lthough it was not mandato-
shaped the organization of controls by
ry, France chose to shift from
differentiating between what fell within
controls undertaken by the
the ambit of public authorities, and what competent public authority (INAO) to
could be delegated to private bodies.
controls undertaken by ISO 17 065-ac-
Since EU regulation 510/2006 credited certification bodies {Ma-
was promulgated, the overall control of rie-Vivien, 2017 #609} accredited by the
the whole PDO/PGI system has to be national accreditation body, COFRAC
ensured by the competent authority of (French Accreditation Committee) and
the Member State. Monitoring compli- approved by INAO, which remains the
ance with the specification of each PDO/ supervisor of the control system. Be-
PGI can be ensured by the competent fore 2006, while controls were official-
authority of the Member State and/or ly under the authority of INAO (public
by a certification body, i.e. an indepen- third-party control), in practice they
dent body in charge of inspecting and were delegated by INAO to GI produc-
certifying the conformity of the PDO/ er associations and were consequently
PGI product with its specification, and considered as insufficiently impartial,
accredited against the European stan- especially concerning wines for which
dard EN 45011 or ISO/IEC 17 065. The “arrangements” between producers
certification body is accredited at the were notorious (Olszak 2007). The ob-
level of the Member State by the nation- jectives of shifting to third-party pri-
al accreditation body, which is the body vate certification bodies were to meet
responsible for officially recognizing the the expectations of consumers, who of-
capability of the certification bodies to ten questioned the impartiality and the
inspect and certify PDO/PGI specifica- effectiveness of controls, and to reduce
tions. The term “certification body”, in- public spending.
A
3
4
Even though INAO is governed by a Board composed of both public and private stakeholders (see
Marie-Vivien et al. (2017)), INAO is recognized as the national competent authority in conformity
with the EU Regulation.
Regulation (EC) No. 510/2006 of March 20, 2006 on the protection of geographical indications and
designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs.
110