International Trade Law News

The European Union (EU) yesterday withdrew its controversial plan to replace national country of origin labels with "Made in the EU." Over the past few months, the EU had considered adopting three possible country of origin marking options:

1. An EU-wide regulation governing the use, on a voluntary basis, of origin marking for both imported goods and EU domestic production.
2. An EU-wide regulation requiring compulsory origin marking for imported goods and voluntary EU origin marking on domestic production.
3. An EU-wide regulation providing for compulsory origin marking for both imported goods and for domestic production.

The fourth option was, of course, the maintenance of the status quo.

After receiving comments from governments, industry and consumer organizations the European Commission concluded that "there does not seem to be sufficient support for the introduction of a compulsory marking scheme for EU products" and that it "does not consider it worthwhile to pursue this possibility further." This is a major understatement since there was nearly universal opposition to this proposal.

The European Commission's report containing a summary of the marking proposals and the comments submitted by interested parties during the consultation process can be viewed at the following link: http://www.djacobsonlaw.com/documents/EUCountryofOriginMarking.pdf.