I explored the problems connected with the creation of a Made in Italy label in a previous post.
Despite the debates surrounding this issue being rife, there are no real projects about a proper law at the moment, but the Italian Ministero dello sviluppo economico (Ministry of Economic Development) recently issued a memorandum (n. 124898 of 9th November – you can download it by clicking on the following link: Download MadeItaly – NB the document is in Italian) that establishes new rules for those products bearing Italian labels but actually made in other countries.
Indeed the document suggests alternative labels to the simple “Made in China” one. Using a self-certification document, companies will be allowed to use labels such as “Product manufactured in non-EU countries”, “Product originating from non-EU countries”, "Product imported from non-EU countries” and “Product not manufactured in Italy”.
It will be possible to add such labels also on removable tags that can be applied to the products even after importing them by declaring such intention to the importing authorities.
There were no proper decisions in the memorandum regarding the actual use of the labels by the owner or the licensee to avoid leading consumers to believe that specific products or goods are made in Italy. Indeed, if the memorandum is to be applied literally, it's the use of the label and not the label per se that should be sanctioned in case the label was used to make consumers believe a specific product was Italian or made in Italy.
Using a "neutral" label that would hint at the "Italianness" of a product – that is with no tri-coloured flag, no geographic maps or other symbols indicating Italy – would still be legal and wouldn’t oblige the manufacturer to indicate where that product was actually made.
A company using instead a label that hints at a potential Italianness of the product accompanied by a flag or a logo that calls back to mind the country, would instead be obliged to reveal the country of origin of the goods.
I honestly don’t think this will lead us anywhere since the focus here seems to be on how to confuse consumers even more, while the emphasis should be on a proper and unique quality logo for real Italian products that could encourage companies to start again manufacturing things in Italy and convince consumers to buy.
Five years ago the Italian Post Office released four stamps dedicated to Made in Italy footwear: if things go on like this, I'm afraid we will have to start issuing more often tribute stamps as Made in Italy products turn into memories of a distant and glorious past.
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