OIL: OCM REFORM, HOPES FOR WTO’S OK ON LABELS

“We hope that WTO will soon decide about this historical target that is the indication of the oil – picking plan on the label”. This is what the EU parliamentary Enzo Lavarra ( member of the EU Agricultural Commission of the European Parliament) expressed in his intervention to ”Extra” first edition, opening at Levante Fair in Bari. ‘In my relation proposed to Ocm reform ( Common Market Organization) to indicate the origin and picking place on the label. Then the European Commissary for Agriculture Fischler agreed to change this proposal into rules.
Then we have insisted strongly on this proposal with the help of the minister De Castro. And finally the European Commission in the new rules recognized the plant or the picking place as origin of our product. This will produce, according to Navarra, an immediate effect. Lavarra added” the consumer reads Apulian olive oil on the label but it can be possible that the olives have only be milled in our country, but produced somewhere else. It is an element of transparence for consumers and a support for virtuous oil producers”. “These rules are being checked by the WTO because they influence the rules of the international trade. Within two months, that is to say within 17th November, we should know WTO’S ultimate decision”.