Following the last meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council (AGRIFISH), held in March, in which the Spanish Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas Puchades, asked his counterparts in the EU Member States for an extraordinary and additional budget for the recovery of the wine sector and, on the eve of a new session of AGRIFISH, the Assembly of European Wine Regions (AREV) has continued its roadmap to unite common positions in support of this demand among the EU-27 countries, also seeking the support of the Presidency of the EU-27, the Assembly of European Wine Regions (AREV) has followed its roadmap to unite common positions in support of this demand among the countries of the EU-27, also seeking the support of the Presidency of the Council, held this semester by the Portuguese minister, Maria do Céu Antunes, and the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Janusz Wojciechowski.
It should be recalled that AREV, as early as last June and given what was about to happen, initiated a specific dialogue with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, aimed at providing an additional and extraordinary budget for the wine sector and the creation of a High-Level Group to define a recovery plan.
With the already consolidated support of Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Czech Republic, and Romania, which represent more than 96% of the wine production of the European Union, according to data published by the DG AGRI for the 2020/21 campaign, through a letter, the president of the AREV, Emiliano-García-Page, has asked the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development to take into account the request of the wine-producing countries and regions, with a view to the next AGRIFISH meeting, intending to put forward an effective position that will enable a recovery plan to be drawn up for the wine sector, whose situation, in addition to being affected by the effects of the pandemic and the US tariffs, has been aggravated in recent weeks by the Arctic cold snap, which has mainly hit Central Europe.
The policies adopted in one direction or another concerning this additional budget allocation are key, as European wine regions account for around 43% of the world’s wine-growing area, 60% of world wine production, and around 53% of world wine consumption, and their impact will affect 1.8 million holdings and 3.2 million hectares of vineyards which are part of our rural areas, our landscape, and our culture, all the more so in the delicate situation in which this sector finds itself.
NOTE: Wine production data published by DG AGRI for the 2020/21 marketing year available at: https://agridata.ec.europa.eu/extensions/DashboardWine/WineProduction.html