€500m EU wine reform plan

THE European Union is to end the practice of paying to turn wine into disinfectant and industrial alcohol in an effort to save the industry.

Instead it will spend the €500 million a year on encouraging farmers to retire, destroying poor quality vines, improving the quality of what is left and promoting European wine worldwide.

It will ban the use of sugar in wines and change the wine labelling system that discriminates against table wines, refusing to allow them give the grape variety and year of production.

The reform plan outlined by EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel yesterday met with a mixed reaction.

Some said it would put thousands of small vine growers out of business while others said it provided a good basis for improving the product.

The EU’s 2.4 million wine producers — 75% of whom have less than five hectares — produce about 86 billion litres of wine a year worth €5.5 billion, making Europe the world’s biggest wine producer, consumer and exporter.

But exports are static and sales have been falling at home as drinking habits change. Imports of New World wines have increased tenfold since 1994.

Firstly, Ms Fischer Boel said she wants about 6% of vines dug up, half of the 400,000 hectares she originally proposed. She also wants to abolish distillation schemes — last year these cost more than €500m.

The money would be used on early retirement schemes, setting up farmers, improving production and processing, training and agri-environment schemes and other measures.

Ms Fischer Boel told the European Parliament: “With this revised approach to support in place, we should do everything we can to let our wine producers get out there and compete around the world, with all the flair and the energy which are theirs.”

There will also be an extra €120m a year available to promote European wines outside the union and on campaigns about responsible wine drinking in the EU.