Brussels, 19/07/2005 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Monday, the Council of agriculture ministers of the Member States of the EU took note of the request by the Italian delegation in favour of the rapid opening of a crisis distillation for wine, given the high level of surpluses. The Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mariann Fischer Boel, stated that her services would do all in their power to take a decision as quickly as possible. Italy pointed out that it had put the request to the European Commission in May and stressed the need to get a green light for the these measures no later than the end of July. It is worth noting that Spain, France and Greece have already obtained the opening of the crisis distillation, for volumes of respectively 4,000,000 hectolitres (hL), 1.5 million hL and 380,000 hL (EUROPE 8969 and 8939). Hungary, which has also recorded a wine surplus, recently asked the Commission for the opening of a crisis distillation for a volume of 215,000 hL.