EU wine reform not very patalable in Spain

The Spanish Ministry of Agriculture has said the newly announced European Commission policy plans for the European wine industry are not "satisfactory". This despite the plan's call to allocate the greastest amount of funds, 470 million euros, to Spain. Spain would receive 50 million more than France or Italy.

With some important "howevers", the Spanish Wine Federation (FEV) in its July 4 press release signalled support. These "howevers" include: the ban on new plantings to 2014, the continued practice of giving the individual countries control on promotional spending, the bureaucratic difficulties surround promotional funding and concern about the new product labeling proposals.

Missing was any direct comment on the big items of the plan: the destruction of 200,000 hectares of vines across Europe and the ending of the 500 million euros per year support for distilling wine to alcohol, which encourages Spain to burn roughly 7 million hectoliters of wine.

These two measures, if not further diluted, could go a long way to removing waste from the sector.