Distillation at EU level and storage: the requests of the Cooperatives in Italy, France and Spain

Competitor on world markets, but allied in asking the European Union for urgent measures for the wine sector. Italy, France and Spain unite, at least on the cooperative front (together the wine cooperatives of the three countries are worth half of European wine production, 75 million hectolitres a year), and call for “the immediate opening of a European crisis distillation of 10 million hectolitres with a specific European budget of 350 million euros, to provide immediate and concrete responses to a sector strongly affected and on which the economy of entire regions depends”. A measure (already proposed by several parties, but which divides opinions, ed.) which, according to a note by Confcooperative, “must be European and provide for a rate of 35 euros per hectolitre, and also provide for the possibility for Member States to increase the Community quota to reach specific prices in the different producer countries of the European Union”.
The cooperatives also ask for a private storage measure for premium wines, the marketing of which may be postponed. In the case of French, Italian and Spanish wine cooperatives, Confcooperative states, “these measures must be financed from a European budget and not from the budgets of the national support program for the wine sector, on the one hand because almost all the measures planned by the NSPs are being implemented or paid for, and on the other hand because, in order to be effective, these measures must be implemented and financed from a specific Community budget and not depend on the subsidiarity granted to each Member State”.
In the meantime, the announcement by the Agriculture Committee to make the terms of the national support programs for the wine sector more flexible was welcomed, to enable Member States to adapt them to the real needs of producers and to respond effectively to this crisis.
“Since the beginning of the crisis, the wine sector has been particularly affected - the letter goes on to say - by the slowdown in exports, the closure of bars, hotels and restaurants and the freezing of tourist activities. The European wine sector has already suffered a significant market crisis due to the 25% tariffs imposed by the USA on certain European wines (excluding Italy, ed.) in October 2019 and the future economic recession will further reduce the consumption of a product like wine. The volumes not sold in these months could weigh on the next harvest due to the lack of storage capacity in the cellars”.