Development of certain regions 3.3.1. Particularly lessfavoured regions' are defined as regions qualifying under the Community policy on agricultural structures for preferential treatment. There is a special justification for such advertising in cases where small and mediumsized undertakings are exposed to strong competition from rival products, particularly substitute products marketed in the Community by powerful firms or by nonCommunity countries spending considerable sums on the advertising and promotion of their products. Advertising of highquality products and health foods 3.5.1. The Commission takes the view that, in the medium and long term, consumers appreciate products of a consistently high quality.
Advertising is a particularly effective way of developing the agricultural production of such goods.
It could not, however, approve aid for the advertising of a label designed mainly to stress the national or regional origin of a product. The same applies, only more so, to appropriately guaranteed products containing no substances for which national or Community legislation lays down a maximum permissible dose. As the Commission has already pointed out, it is in the Community's interests to take account of the consumer's increasing preference for 'natural' foods and the dietary value thereof, by prohibiting harmful substances and by encouraging healthy varieties, and to provide consumers with the necessary information and guarantees which will restore a climate of confidence and have positive effects on consumption. The Commission will therefore adopt a favourable attitude towards aid for the advertising of agricultural products grown by 'biological' means, provided that the consumer can be given adequate guarantees. It is therefore in the public interest that additional guarantees should be sought to prevent trading conditions being influenced in favour of Member States expending substantial sums on advertising their own national products, to the detriment of those Member States which, for budgetary or other reasons, have to limit their expenditure on such advertising.