15 July 2015 News

AREPO is organising a seminar at EXPO Milano 2015

The DG AGRI launched a call for applications for European non-governmental organisations, members of its Civil Dialogue Groups, to take part in the “Week of the DG AGRI Stakeholders”, organised between 7 and 15 September at Expo Milano 2015. The selected organisations will have the opportunity to organise an event in the meeting room of the EU pavilion at Expo Milan linked to the CAP or to the main theme of the Expo Milano “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”.

Being a member of three Civil Dialogue Groups, we had the possibility to present a proposal and our application has been retained to organize a seminar on GIs on Friday, 11th of September 2015:

“Innovating and Organising Research, Education and Training for Sustainable Geographical Indications”

This seminar aims to bring together stakeholders from the research, education and training sectors in order to exchange experiences and practices and to define future priorities for the sustainable development of Geographical Indications.

The EU pursues three objectives through its Common Agricultural Policy: securing viable food production; ensuring sustainable management of natural resources and climate action and contributing to balanced territorial development. Through the protection of GIs, the support and the promotion of products of origin can help meet these objectives, especially in disadvantaged rural areas.

Nevertheless, the potential of products of origin in terms of sustainable rural development both within and outside the EU has not yet been fully exploited, primarily due to a lack of knowledge and skills in this area. Relevant avenues of research should be pursued, in order to sustain and promote products of origin through the development of GIs, in line with sustainable rural development. To achieve this we need to integrate specific knowledge and skills from different stakeholders – local administrations, farm advisors, producers’ associations, enterprises, researchers, etc.

Stakeholders from the EU and other interested countries will be invited to present their experiences, opening the debate on the following questions:

  1. What are the needs in terms of knowledge and skills for the sustainable development of GIs? 

  2. Does the existing research and training meet the current priorities? 

  3. What kind of best practices should be developed? 


The conclusion of this debate will help to define new strategies at the European level. 

Attached you can find the draft programme. Participation in this event is by invitation only. For more information, you can contact us at arepoevents@arepoquality.eu

Please click here to check all the presentations and the conclusions of the event.