Brussels, 24/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - The high level group on wine, which was held for the third time on Friday 21 September, assessed the European Commission's ideas positively on a new mechanism for managing vine plantations. At its last meeting at the end of November, this group will try to draw some conclusions. On this basis, the Commission will present legislative proposals to adopt according to the co-decision procedure - proposals which should come into force at the end of 2015 when the current system expires.
The Council of the European Union decided in 2008 to put an end to the temporary system of plantation rights from 1 January 2016. Since then, 15 countries have asked the Commission to review this decision. The Commission does not totally renounce the liberalisation of plantation rights, but considers that it should take account of the concerns expressed by the member states and professional organisations on the subject of ending the plantation rights system - including risks of overproduction leading to lower prices, abandonment of least productive areas for the benefit of lowland areas, and a decrease in the number of family farms.
“If there is a system of plantation management, it must be flexible, not restrictive, both at the EU and member state level, and widely involving the industry. Thus we recognise that a modern and ambitious plantation system cannot be centralised in Brussels. It will favour better organisation, cooperation and management of the sector and of the industry, with the objective of collectively making the value added profitable and collectively benefiting from the economic consequences”, said José Manuel Silva Rodriguez, Director-General of DG Agri at the European Commission.
During the high level group's discussions two key complementary tools have been mentioned - plantation management for geographical indication wines (PDO, PGI), and a safeguard clause to avoid any quick plantation expansion for wines without geographical indication. Member states have been in favour of these elements and will inform the Commission of their comments. A final meeting is planned for the end of November at which the group should draw conclusions from the reflection process which was started in January 2012 on the initiative of Commissioner Dacian Ciolos.
At the high level group which met in Palermo, Silva Rodriguez said that the key idea was to widely involve professionals in plantation management, which requires the active participation of most economic actors in the wine industry. This perspective is in line with the CAP reform proposal in which the role of producers' organisations and inter-branch organisations is substantially strengthened.
Rights management for PDO/PGI wines. According to the Commission this involves transferring the management of their plantation surface areas to the economic actors of PDO/PGI wines. This management could come as part of the tasks allocated to professional organisations, such as producers' organisations, inter-branch organisations or any other competent authority. In this system, some priorities could be introduced according to objective and non-discriminatory criteria, in favour of young farmers, as well as certain conditions linked to the typology of the land; while taking care not to end up with a system that is too restrictive.
Safeguard clause. “Even if we do not foresee an explosion of new plantations in 2019, it is important to respond to certain fears that you have expressed”, said Silva Rodriguez. Hence the new system of plantation management could foresee a safeguard clause, activated by the member states (or the Commission) in cases where the pre-set threshold is overshot. In such cases, plantations would be frozen. This mechanism would be to avoid any quick expansion of the vineyard which could generate damage to the market situation.
This new system would not apply to some member states, as is currently the case. Eleven member states are concerned. The new system would be applied in a coherent and harmonised way between member states, but perhaps not to countries which have a very much reduced production potential. The current restrictions at the national and regional level should disappear in order to avoid any competition distortion between producers in the EU. The new system would involve rules of control being established at EU level and would foresee sanctions that the participating countries would apply in case of infringement of the rules. Finally, this new system should be integrated in the new single CMO (common market organisation) regulation after 2013. The regions, the geographical areas concerned or the member states could then apply it from the start of 2016 or 2019 if the current system continued temporarily, as the current legislation foresees. (LC/transl.fl)