A European Parliament committee will vote next week on controversial rules that would require consumer goods to be labelled with their country of origin.

The European Commission has proposed that, for goods made in the European Union, manufacturers should be required to attach a label indicating either “Made in the European Union” or specifying the product’s country of origin.

The proposed rule, which would apply to consumer goods other than food, is supported by France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, but is being fiercely resisted by governments and MEPs from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

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According to the Commission’s proposal, goods imported from outside the EU would have to carry a country-of-origin label.

Improving surveillance

All manufacturers and importers are already required to place a name and address on goods sold in the EU, but the Commission argues that including an additional ‘Made in’ label would help “to identify the actual place of manufacture in all those cases where the manufacturer cannot be contacted” and improve market surveillance.

Antonio Tajani, the European commissioner for industry and entrepreneurship, who is from Italy, included the rules for ‘Made in’ labelling in his proposal for product safety rules, which he published in February, jointly with Antonio Borg, then the European commissioner for health and consumer policy, who is from Malta. (Responsibility for consumer policy has since been given to Neven Mimica, Croatia’s European commissioner.) Because the country-of-origin rules were added late in the preparation of the proposal, they were not subject to a Commission impact assessment.

Christel Schaldemose, the centre-left Danish MEP who drafted Parliament’s response to the proposal, described the country-of-origin rules as a “great victory … for traceability in the supply chain, which will benefit consumers”.

But critics of the measure say that it will do little to improve product safety or traceability. They fear that the labels will favour certain industries that manufacture predominantly in Europe and certain countries that enjoy a strong reputation with consumers.

Similar ‘country of origin’ rules, to apply to manufactured goods imported into the EU, were blocked last year. Rules specific to textiles were watered down by member states in 2011.

The Parliament’s committee for the internal market and consumer protection approved its report on the Commission proposal two weeks ago. On Tuesday (5 November), the committee will vote on whether to open negotiations on the legislation with the Council of Ministers. If the committee votes against, the report will be referred for a vote of the full Parliament.