FIGHT TO SAVE HISTORIC CIDER BRANDY 'NOT OVER YET'

10.25.00pm GMT Thu 8th Nov 2007

The fight to save one of the country's oldest distilled drinks, cider brandy, which can be traced back to 1678, took a knock this week when a Parliamentary question from a Euro MP received a disappointing response from the European Commission.

Liberal Democrat MEP Liz Lynne was alerted to the omission of the name of the historic drink in new EU legislation by a producer in Hereford, in her West Midlands region constituency, and immediately raised the issue with Commissioner Marian Fischer Boel. The Commissioner replied saying the text had been amended, deleting cider brandy after objection to the term from members of the Council of Ministers (i.e. other national governments). Apparently no other Council member (including the UK government) spoke up in its favour.

Local MEP Liz said:

"I was naturally alarmed to hear that a drink of such international reputation and historical importance has been left out of this new legislation.

"Any forced name change would do untold financial damage to producers in Herefordshire, Somerset and Normandy, not only a loss of sales created by the name confusion, but also the re-labelling and marketing which would be necessary. It may also hurt associated business such as the Cider Museum itself in Hereford.

"It seems that there is little that can be done to stop the Council rubber-stamping this now. However, the UK government is apparently now looking into the issue. The Agriculture Secretary must raise this again in Council and we as MEPs must see if an amendment to the legislation is possible before the 15-month changeover period for producers runs out in early 2009."