PRESS RELEASE
- The President of the Assembly of European Wine Regions (AREV), Emiliano García-Page, addressed a letter to President Ursula von der Leyen, asking for her support in view of the current crisis in the sector caused by COVID19.
- In addition to a recovery plan, AREV suggested the creation of a high-level group responsible for proposing measures to help revive the European wine sector affected by the pandemic.
Brussels, June 12th, 2020 – The Assembly of European Wine Regions (AREV) has sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament, Ursula von der Leyen, requesting an urgent recovery plan for the wine sector, given the concern about the situation caused by COVID19.
The President of the Assembly of European Wine Regions (AREV), Emiliano García-Page Sánchez, on behalf of the regions that make up the Assembly, expressed to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, of his concern in the face of the serious crisis in the wine sector, due to the COVID19 pandemic.
By this declaration, he explained to Ursula von der Leyen that the European wine regions need a “real and urgent” recovery plan which can strengthen the double performance – economic and environmental – of the wine sector. In this context, AREV asked the European Commission to urgently endow the wine market with an extraordinary budget to reverse this situation, as has been done in other sectors, such as the meat sectors. or dairy products.
As the President of AREV indicated in his letter, the economic slowdown and the contraction of consumption in the coming months “will further worsen the situation”, stressing the importance of the wine sector in the dynamics of the economy and its strong link with European territories.
In this context, AREV suggested that the Commission set up a High Level Group on Wine, made up of representatives of the Commission, the European Parliament and stakeholders in the sector, which would meet without delay and formulate its recommendations. before the end of September.
The challenge for this High Level Group will be to propose measures to “promote the revitalization of the wine sector and ensure the sustainable development of wine regions”.
Urgent measures to revitalize the wine sector
Firstly,, it is pointed out, it will be necessary to find appropriate market instruments to be used in the coming months, such as green harvesting, maintaining distillation and crisis storage beyond the end of 2020; the possibility in 2020 of an additional tolerance for the blending of vintages.
Second, the high level group should support a policy of “more dynamic promotion on the international and national market” and on how to improve the contribution of the wine sector to the development of regions, for example through wine tourism.
AREV is convinced that a High Level Group can make appropriate proposals for the revitalization of wine and European territories, and this is the reason for the letter from the President of AREV to the President of the European Commission.
Based in Brussels, the Association of European Wine Regions, which this year celebrates its 32nd anniversary since its constitution, is made up of regions from more than a dozen countries, including Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Portugal, the main wine producers in the European Union, which together represent 45% of the wine-growing area, 65% of production, 57% of world consumption and 70% of exports in world terms.