Romania wants to add regional cheese and smoked fish among EU's protected products

Around 15 Romanian products could get European protection after the country’s Ministry of Agriculture will send the documentation by end-2014. The applications for two Romanian products, namely the Ibanesti cheese (Telemeaua de Ibanesti) and the Novac smoked fish from Tara Barsei (Peste Novac afumat din Tara Barsei) were already submitted to the European Union (EU). “We already have a list of 31 products, we are currently working on it in order to send it to the European Union, while two other files have already been submitted to Brussels: the Ibanesti cheese and the Novac smoked fish from Tara Barsei. Other two files for cheese from Marginimea Sibiului and Sibiu salami were also submitted to the ministry. These two are still being analyzed,” said Viorel Morarescu, general manager within the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, cited by local Capital.ro. “Our target for this year was to submit 30 files to the EU, a quite ambitious target, but I hope to at least have up to 15 files sent to the EU for protection by the end of this year,” he added. The Romanian Topoloveni plum jam (Magiun de prune Topoloveni) is the only Romanian product added by the European Commission to the register of protected designations of origin (PDO) and protected geographical indications (PGI). Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com