It's almost enough to make you choke on your Aussiemade camembert. The European Union is trying to use complex intellectual property rights rules to lock out Australia's dairy industry from export markets through the Doha round of World Trade Organisation negotiations.
Australia's dairy industry is valued at more than $3 billion at the farm gate, and $9.2 billion wholesale, of which more than $2.5 billion is earned in exports.
But under the EU's proposal, Australian cheese producers may no longer be able to use simple names like "parmesan" or "brie" in export markets. Cheeses at risk also include mozzarella, fetta and many others.
At the start of the Doha round of WTO talks in 2001, participating governments committed to negotiate an international system of registration and notification for geographic indicators, or GIs.
GIs are a comparatively new -- and very questionable -- form of intellectual property.
GIs assign rights to names that indicate the geographic origin of a good, or a certain quality, reputation or characteristic linked to its origin.
The regularly cited example of a GI is "champagne" -- a word that can now be used to describe only sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France.
The negotiation for international registration of GIs was supposed to be limited to wines and spirits. WTO members are required to prevent the registration of trademarks for GI-covered wines and spirits in their home country.
The EU is now trying to extend GIs to include all agricultural products, in particular cheese. Under the proposal, countries would have to argue why a GI should not be registered and enforced in their territory.
The EU has deliberately designed the rules to place the burden of proof on the protesting country, not the applicant.
For Australia, there are incentives to fight most, if not all, applications on cheeses. But for countries that do not produce or export cheeses, fighting a GI registration may be more effort than it is worth.
Japan, other parts of Asia, and North Africa all import cheese from Australia. Yet it is doubtful they would bother fighting GIs on largely imported cheeses. If they don't, Australian diary producers will no longer be able to export those cheeses under their consumer-recognised names.
The EU proposal is trying to claw back generic product names. In doing so, they are also hoping to expand exports into markets where cheeses with generic names have become commonly used.
For example, parmesan cheese has become renowned across the world for a particular taste, not for its origins in Italy's Parma region.
The EU is trying to achieve its objective by negotiating GI extension as part of the final WTO agreement for the Doha round, which encompasses all areas for potential liberalisation. By doing so, the EU is trying to use GI extension as part of the negotiation package for reducing its agriculture export subsidies.
The risk for Australian industry is that in the haste to get a broader agreement in the Doha round, Australian interests will be sold out. The main event of these negotiations is reduction of European and American agriculture subsidies and developing country industrial tariffs. GI extension is merely a side event.
Indeed, some developing countries are now supporting the EU's GI extension proposal in order to get support for their own amendments to WTO intellectual property rules.
The Australian government needs to take further, strong action now to oppose the EU's plans. Not doing so will bring a short-term political cost. But the long-term cost will be borne by a diminished Australian dairy industry.
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