Application for the name ‘halloumi’ to go to EU in early 2007

AFTER a Thursday Cabinet meeting, it is expected that in early 2007 the application to register halloumi as a PDO (protected designation of origin) will be sent to the European Commission. Agriculture Minister Fotis Fotiou is expected to ask from the House Agriculture Committee to convene as soon as possible to approve the application to register halloumi as a PDO.

The process to register any agricultural product as a PDO within the European Union is straightforward. An individual or group submits an application for the product to the Registrar and Official Receiver, which then forward it to the appropriate committee.

If the committee accepts the application, it is then published in the government gazette for a three-month period for objections. If the committee agrees with the objections, the application is dropped; if not, it goes to the EU for the same objection period process and then is registered as a PDO.

Halloumi is presently registered as a protected Cypriot product within the US but not the EU.
The delay and government inaction in registering the name ‘halloumi’ in the EU up until now has been due to a conflict between dairy producers and sheep and goat farmers as to whether registered halloumi will contain cow’s milk or not.

Sheep and goat farmers feel that the government has sided for financial and electioneering purposes with the industrial dairy farmers with the result that they are ignoring the natural advantages that the island has to offer – namely, sheep and goat farming – while promoting a product that Cyprus has an absolute disadvantage in – cow’s milk.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.