Fourteen EU countries are calling for additional support for the wine sector, in a declaration on Tuesday 16 March to be presented at the Agriculture Council on 22-23 March.
According to the signatory delegations (Austrian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Cypriot, Czech, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Maltese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian and Spanish), the extension to 2021 of the 2020 exceptional provisions for the wine sector (distillation and private storage) is not sufficient.
Additional funds are needed, they say, “considering the economic consequences of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis as well as the unfair US additional tariffs”.
These EU countries are asking the European Commission “to provide additional budget” for support programmes in the sector “for Member States to be able to put in place mechanisms for supply reduction and to grant their affected wine growers and companies financial assistance”.
The European Commission decided at the end of January to extend for one year the exceptional support measures for the wine sector due to the consequences of the crisis arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and the difficulties linked to the commercial dispute between the aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus (see EUROPE 12646/3, 12637/12).
Link to the 14 countries’ declaration: https://bit.ly/2NtlyYI (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)