Experts agree that proper Olomouc cheese, or Olomoucké tvarůžky, should be moist and slightly sticky, with a lustrous, translucent layer on the outside. The inside, by contrast, should be firm but not tough, its color somewhere between light beige and creamy white. And then there is the characteristic smell.

"It's a cheese with a strong, pungent odor that borders on putrid," says European Parliament (EP) member Jan Březina, who is from Moravia where the cheese is made. "It should be ripe, but I'm not a fan of the variety that is so well-aged that it moves."

But is it authentically Czech? On that point hangs a debate stirring up the EP. Tvarůžky and another of the country's favorite products — thin, sweet wafers from Karlovy Vary known as oplatky — are at the center of an argument between Czech, German and Austrian members of the EP.

Czechs have applied to the European Commission to grant the two products the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) label. The designation gives the makers of traditional regional foods exclusive rights to use the product name. Roquefort cheese, for instance, can only come from France; Prosciutto di Parma ham must be from Italy.

Above all, having a PDO gives producers a major competitive advantage and the potential for greater profits.

Germans and Austrians are against granting Czechs a PDO for Karlovy Vary wafers and Olomouc cheese, arguing the two products were traditionally made by Germans living in Czechoslovakia before the end of World War II.

Not surprisingly, that's got several Czech EP members seeing red, among them Březina. Czech wafer and cheese makers are no less insulted.

Wafer wars

"The PDO is a technical term that has to do with the manufacturing technique and the product's geographic origin," says Březina. "I don't like at all that they're bringing politics into it."

German EP member Bernd Posselt insists he isn't trying to politicize the issue and doesn't fear it will put a strain on Czech-German relations. But, he adds, he's not pleased about the Czech gesture.

"Carlsbad wafers are a common tradition from the 19th century. I think that this product should be kept as a shared heritage."

But Czech EP member Jana Bobošíková says the issue is more about competition between the producers than about tradition.

Ladislav Jaroš, director of Karlovarská pekárna Phobos, a Karlovy Vary-based company that's been making the wafers since the early 1990s, strongly disagrees.

There are currently two German firms, Dr. Quendt and Wetzel, that use the label Karlsbad oblaten. These companies pose serious competition to the two Czech wafer producers, Jaroš says.

Questions of technique

What's more, Jaroš says, authentic wafers from Karlovy Vary should be made with local spring water, something the German firms can't do.

"It's clear that Karlovy Vary water is one of the necessary ingredients," says Bobošíková. "I don't expect that the Sudeten Germans who left Carlsbad after the war brought the water with them."

Posselt disagrees. "The best wafers are made by Wetzel, which is a Sudeten German firm," he says. "The water is not important."

When it comes to the cheese from Olomouc, the issue of authenticity has more to do with traditional technique than ingredients.

"The tvarůžky-making technique is a very specific one," says Jaroslav Kovář, executive head of AW, a Moravian company that's been making the cheese since the 19th century. "What the Austrians call Olmützer Quargel is a completely different type of cheese."

Mirroring Posselt, Austrian EP member Agnes Schierhuber says Germans who had to leave Moravia in 1945 took the Olomouc cheese tradition to Germany and Austria and therefore shouldn't lose the right to use the name Olomouc in their product.

Kovář says that using Olomouc in the name of a cheese made in Austria or Germany is misleading, though. "It's without question that Olomouc is located in Moravia," he says.

Some 30 Czech products are currently awaiting PDO approval by the European Commission, including gingerbread from Pardubice and carp from Třeboň. Only once the commission reviews each of the products can EP members formally make a case against granting the PDO.

If that happens, Březina says Czechs will fight back.