Brussels, 20/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 20 November, the president of the Assembly of European Wine-growing Regions (AREV), Jean-Paul Bachy, welcomed the turnaround by the director general for agriculture, José Manuel Silva Rodriguez, and notes the opinions he expressed in his interview with Agra-Europe, excluding total liberalisation of planting rights for all wine categories.
In this interview, José Manuel Silva Rodriguez explained that the project on which the high-level workgroup on vine plantation rights (of which he is president) is expected to begin work includes a new authorisation system for extending plantations for all kinds of wine, including those without geographic indications (GI), managed by the respective national public authorities in consultation with professional organisations and framed at a European level. The director-general of agricultural services at the Commission says that he is on exactly the same wavelength as Commissioner Dacian Ciolos and now considers that the most important thing is to define the modalities for this European initiative. AREV believes that this about turn is due to the massive mobilisation of delegates and sector professionals who met on 7 November in Brussels to say, "no to the dismantling of European viticulture” (EUROPE 10725). A “hard-line advocate of total liberalszation, in spite of the disastrous counter-example of the Australian system”, Silva Rodriguez finished by listening to the voice of reason, according to an AREV press release. AREV explained that on 21 September last, “he refused to allow the AREV to address the meeting of the High Level Group (HLG) at Palermo and had already made the unrealistic proposal of limiting the abolition of planting rights to non-GI wines”. The Director General “finally” adopted the proposal of Commissioner Ciolos who, in his Budapest speech on October 2, sounded the knell of liberalism in viticulture by declaring: “Wine with or without a GI needs to be regulated. Liberalisation is not an option”. AREV, nevertheless, remains vigilant, while waiting to see the high-ranking official's reversal confirmed by the commissioner's line in the report that he presents in the name of the high level group on December 14. (LC/trans/fl)