The Treaty excludes any discrimination between Community producers and considers measures affecting trade between Member States, distorting or even threatening to distort competition, to be incompatible with the common market.
According to the statement by the Italian authorities themselves, the proposed law aims to reinforce Italian consumers' preference for domestic products.
As such, is incompatible with Article 28 of the EC Treaty because it is likely to distort competition: a national law whose scope is "to promote and enhance national organic products by using a distinctive graphic symbol to distinguish those produced using organic methods and made with raw materials grown or reared in Italy" is clearly in contrast to the common market.
'The rules of a Member State which make the use of a quality designation for a national product subject to the condition that one or more stages of the production process prior to the preparation of the finished product have taken place on national territory' are measures having equivalent effect to a quantitative restriction, prohibited by Article 34 TFEU, and not justified by Article 36 thereof,(Court of Justice, judgment of 12 October 1978, Case C-13/78, Joh. Eggers Sohn & CO).
The Court of Justice held that, by adopting and maintaining in force legislation granting the ‘Walloon quality label’ to products manufactured or processed in Wallonia, the Belgian State had failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 28 of the EC Treaty (Court of Justice, judgment of 17 June 2004, Case C-255/03, Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Belgium).
With reference to a regulation introduced to promote the marketing of agri-food products made in Germany, whose advertising message emphasized the German origin of the products concerned (through the indication “Markenqualität aus deutschen Landen,” CMA), the Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that it had restrictive effects on the free movement of goods between Member States and “may induce consumers to purchase products bearing the CMA mark, to the exclusion of imported products” (Court of Justice, judgment of November 5, 2002, in Case C-325/2000, Commission of the European Communities v. Federal Republic of Germany).
Etc etc.
In addition, foreign operators are not registered in the Italian Organic Information System (SIB), which is part of the National Agricultural Information System (SIAN) infrastructure, and therefore cannot even apply if they wish to use the Italian national label.
In addition, the draft does not even mention relations between the competent Italian authority and foreign control bodies, which are authorised by their competent authority and it is unclear on what basis they should cooperate with the Italian authority.
