20/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 19 July, the management committee approved Portugal's request to open crisis distillation to use up some of the excess production of wine. Portuguese producers will be able to distil up to 200,000 hectolitres (hl) of table wine at the Community price of €1.914 per hl. Portugal is the fifth EU country to take advantage of this measure since the start of the year, after Spain (300,000 hl of quality wines), Greece (370,000 hl of table wines and 130,000 hl of quality wines), France (1.5 million hl of table wines and 1.5 million hl of quality wines) and Italy (2.5 million hl of table wines and 100,000 hl of quality wines). Full details are in EUROPE 9218 and 9206.