Mainz, 21/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - During their informal meeting in Mainz in Germany, EU member state agriculture ministers displayed the utmost cautious on Monday 21 May in response to initial indications that had filtered out on the legislative proposals on reform of the Common Market Organisation (CMO) for wine, that should be adopted by the European Commission on 4 July (see other article).
Asked by journalists during a Riesling wine cooperative visit in the winegrowing region of Rheingau, the Portuguese minister of agriculture, Jaime Silva, criticised the delay in the presentation of the Commission's proposal for reform of the wine sector, following a year of debate between member states. He promised to do everything to get the work on winegrowing reform in the second half of 2007 moving, when Portugal takes up the presidency of the Council of EU ministers. Btu given the complexity of the dossier and the European Parliament's intention to adopt its opinion as late as January 2008, Silva said that he was not certain whether European ministers could reach an agreement by the end of the year.
Italian minister, Paolo de Castro, was pleased to note that over a period of a year, the Commission had reduced its grubbing up target of vines in the EU by two (from 400,000 to 200,000 hectares). He said that he supported getting rid of wine distillation measures but was against ending bi-product distillation measures (musts). He said that it was crucial to allow member states to decide how to implement reform. German minister, Horst Seehofer, expressed strong reservations about the grubbing up measures principle. He produced more forward looking measures for enhancing sector competitiveness (promotion).
The Austrian and Luxembourg agriculture ministers, Josef Pröll and Fernand Boden, respectively, pointed out that they were opposed to the Commission's plan to ban the addition of sucrose to wine. These countries, nevertheless, noted that many member states (from the south of Europe) wanted to end this enrichment practice.
The Spanish minister, Elena Espinosa and her new French colleague, Christine Lagarde arrived in Mainz on Monday evening. (lc)