Beyond mere sustenance, food is presented as central to the construction of cultures and identities. Especially the connections of food and national identity have gained significant traction in academic debates: “Food is an important medium through which national identity is experienced in everyday consumption, as well as envisioned by policies governing what we eat” (Bardone & Spalvena 2019: 43). Central to these discourses – and policies – are concepts of authenticity, heritage, and terroir. Importantly, these food narratives are highly political both in their construction and their impacts.

In the European Union, the appeal to culinary heritage and terroir is formalised through its extensive Geographical Indication system. While being based on the French appellation of origin system, the EU clearly reconstructs Geographical Indications in terms of European identity, in that they “represent the wealth and diversity of our European culinary heritage” (European Commission 2022). This indicates that beyond reinforcing processes of gastronationalism, the EU also promotes narratives of Gastroeuropeanism in which culinary discourse is tied to European identity constructions. Importantly, the EU encourages non-members to adopt its Geographical Indication legislation, including in the Eastern Neighbourhood. While this is typically seen in the context of the EU’s opposition to the United States’ trademark system, in the Eastern Neighbourhood the focus on place-specific, “traditional”, and “authentic” culinary production also typically contradicts histories of large-scale agricultural production in the Soviet Union.

Thus, the paper investigates national identity constructions and connectedly the (re-)narration of Eastern Partnership countries’ Soviet histories through culinary discourse. Specifically, it investigates the role of the European Union and member states in these narratives, including references to “European identity” through similarities in heritage production and the formalisation of these narratives through Geographical Indication regulations. Specifically, it will focus on three cases, all of which share strong viticultural histories, but which differ in their formal relationship with the European Union: Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia.

The free movement of citizens within the European Union has been widely interpreted and applied, so that some originally unexpected rights are currently recognised and protected. The most evident is the right to the (cross-border) continuity of the names. The presentation aims to describe the most relevant case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and its development. The most famous case is Garcia Avello, since it involved two binational children that risked to have two different surnames according to the laws of their citizenships. While it has been quite easy for the CJEU to identify a material discrimination against the children, the subsequent Grunkin and Paul case focussed entirely on the freedom of movement of the EU citizen. According to the Court, the double identity attributed to the child constituted a serious impairment that risked undermining his right to free movement, even if a discrimination was failing in this case.

Yet the target of the mutual recognition cannot be absolute, but must be balanced with other general objective interests, that can form part of the public policy of the State of destination in the light of its national identity (art. 4 TFEU). Among these, the CJEU accepted the principle of non-discrimination among national citizens and the republican form of the State (case Sayn-Wittgenstein) and the protection of the national language (case Runevič-Vardyn and Wardyn). Furthermore, the application of the grounds of refusal must be consistent (case Nabiel Peter Bogendorff von Wolffersdorff), and where the recognition is not possible, the Member State must grant effective internal procedures that consider the double identity a serious infringement of the right of the EU mobile citizen, that must be eliminated (case Freitag).

The case Runevič-Vardyn and Wardyn is interesting, too, since the CJEU mentions for the first time the right to private life, as protected by the ECHR and the ECFR. This gives the opportunity to discuss the right to a name and to the cross-border continuity of the name as human rights, noting that the conclusions of the ECtHR’s and of the CJEU’s case-law are consistent and consonant.

The final remarks focus on the duties in terms of flexibility and efficiencies imposed on the Member States by the two European Courts, in the framework of the fundamental rights granted to the mobile citizens.