Council Decision (EU) 2019/1754 of 7 October 2019 on the accession of the European Union to the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications

What it is

to approve the accession of the European Union to the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications. ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: Council may adopt the act only if Parliament has given its consent to the act. BACKGROUND: the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration of 31 October 1958 created a special union within the framework of the Union for the Protection of Industrial Property which was established by the Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property signed in Paris on 20 March 1883. The contracting parties undertake to protect on their territories the appellations of origin of products of the other countries within the Special Union which are recognised and protected as such in the country of origin and which are registered at the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), unless those parties declare, within a period of one year from the receipt of the notification of such a registration, that they cannot ensure such protection. The Committee on Legal Affairs adopted the report by Virginie ROZIÈRE (S&D, FR) on the draft Council decision on the accession of the European Union to the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications. The committee recommended that the European Parliament give its consent to the accession of the European Union to the Act. The Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration of 31 October 1958 created a ‘Special Union’ within the framework of the Union for the Protection of Industrial Property established by the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. On 20 May 2015, the Geneva Act revised the Lisbon Agreement. The Geneva Act expands the scope of the Lisbon system beyond appellations of origin to cover all geographical indications and makes it possible for international organisations, such as the European Union, to become contracting parties. The Union has exclusive competence for the areas covered by the Geneva Act. For certain agricultural products, the Union has put in place uniform and comprehensive protection systems for geographical indications for wines (1970), spirits (1989), aromatised wines (1991) and other agricultural products and foodstuffs (1992). However, without accession, the EU and its Member States would not be able to benefit from the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement. The rapporteur therefore welcomes the Council's decision to approve the Union's accession to the Geneva Act. She also welcomes the possibility for Member States to accede to the said Act in the interest of the Union and with due respect for its exclusive competence, which will guarantee the Union's right to vote while accommodating the particular situation of Member States already contracting parties to the Lisbon Agreement. The European Parliament adopted by 607 votes to 25, with 15 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the draft Council decision on the accession of the European Union to the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of…

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