Brussels, 10/10/2006 (Agence Europe) - Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) experts will, on 16 October, examine a new compromise text from the Finnish Presidency on the proposal setting new rules for the definition, presentation and labelling of spirit drinks. The cause of greatest division among Member States is the sales denominations of vodka. The Finnish Presidency hopes that, at their meeting in Luxemburg on 25 October, agriculture ministers will find agreement on a general approach to the issue, so that the European Parliament, which is due to vote on the proposal in first reading in January 2007, can be informed immediately. The Presidency's aim, therefore, is to make it easier for the Council and EP to find a compromise on spirit drinks before the end of the year, and to hand the matter over to the German Presidency, with a view to reaching an agreement at the start of 2007.
The vodka issue has divided the Council into two groups. On the one side, there are the Member States, like Poland, Sweden and Finland, which market high quality products made according to traditional methods. They want vodka to be labelled as such, and produced only from the fermentation of cereals and potatoes. They are opposed to the broader definition put forward by the European Commission in its initial proposal (“spirit drink made from the fermentation of agricultural raw materials”). On the other side, there are the mainly southern European countries (Spain, Italy) and the United Kingdom, which back the broad definition and do not want any distinction drawn between vodka made according to the centuries old tradition and vodka that contains raw materials other than cereals and potatoes. These countries support the Commission's approach. Hitherto, compromise texts put forward have not been to the satisfaction of either of the groups.
The Finnish Presidency has put forward an improved version of the draft compromise discussed by experts from the Member States on the SCA on 3 October without gathering the support of a majority of countries. It proposes two separate categories of vodka, with greater precision: 1) “vodka” (designated by this denomination), a spirit drink made from ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin obtained from cereals, potatoes and/or molasses from sugar beet by fermentation with yeast; - 2) “vodka made from” (with the name of the raw materials used, other than cereals, potatoes or molasses from sugar beet; such as grapes, for example). The Presidency has added molasses from sugar beet to try to bring France and Germany on side with this compromise text, which some sources say could be enough to satisfy Poland, but not the United Kingdom (which wants molasses from sugar cane to be included among the raw materials) nor Sweden (which will continue to defend its “purist” position of a single high quality category). Negotiations on the labelling of spirit drinks are made all the more difficult by divisions in the European Parliament too. The draft report by Horst Schnellhardt (CDU) on behalf of the Parliamentary environment and food safety committee (leader on this issue) promotes a rather liberal approach in the denomination of vodka, while the members of the agriculture committee, in their draft opinion, support the traditional product. (lc)