Geographical indications and appellation of origin protect the designations of products originating from specific regions and which have specific qualities or a reputation linked to the territory of production. They also aim to promote the unique characteristics of products linked to their geographical origin and traditional know-how.
Products with a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) are those which have the closest ties to their place of production. Each step of the production, processing and preparation process must occur in the area concerned.
Feta cheese was registered at the European Commission in 1994 and has been a protected designation in the European Union since 2002. This means that the name "feta" cannot be used to designate any other cheese than that which is produced in specific regions of Greece, namely Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus, Thessaly, mainland Greece, Peloponnese and the nome of Lesbos. Furthermore, the milk used in the production of feta cheese must come from one of these regions.
The registration of the name “feta” as a PDO has encountered many difficulties, more particularly due to Denmark and Germany which opposed the registration of the name as was agreed to by the European Commission in 2002. They claimed that the name “feta” had become generic, i.e. "the name of an agricultural product or a foodstuff which, although it refers to the place or the region where this agricultural product or this foodstuff was initially produced or marketed, has become the common name of an agricultural product or a foodstuff in the Community".
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) finally ruled on 25 October 2005, in affair C-465/02 and C-466/02, Germany and Denmark v. Commission, that Feta was indeed a valid PDO following its registration as such in 2002, and that it should not be considered as a generic term.
Despite the CJEU ruling, Denmark allowed several Danish producers and companies to export cheese to third countries under the names "Feta", "Danish Feta" and "Danish Feta Cheese" even though these products did not meet the specifications of the Feta PDO of the European Union on 14 Ju. This non-respect of the ruling was the subject of the decision rendered by the Court of Justice in 2022 (CJEU, July 14, 2022, aff. C-159/20, European Commission v. Kingdom of Denmark)(1).
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