Onderzoek naar staatssteun wijntelers in Rheinland-Pfalz (en)
The Commission has today decided to initiate a formal investigation into the support for winegrowers' co-operatives and wine producer organisations in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. The regional authorities of three districts in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer area and the local authority of Schweich paid state aid for the acquisition of business shares in co-operatives in the year 2000. The Commission has received a complaint concerning this aid. After a preliminary examination, the Commission has doubts whether the measure complies with state aid rules.
The aid amounts to a total of € 155 460 and was granted to winegrowers who undertook for five years starting from the filing of their application to acquire business shares for this period. Each winegrower had also to bring into the co-operative the total area cultivated and to deliver all grapes, must and wine to the co-operative. In this way, the measure should have helped to concentrate the wine supply and to stabilise prices on the cask-wine market.
The measure appears, however, to be mainly designed to assist winegrowers in the relevant district in that they are able to acquire shares at lower cost. Yet it also assists co-operatives by obliging winegrowers to deliver their grapes and/or wine. The co-operatives thereby seem to enjoy a commercial advantage in relation to other enterprises such as private-sector wine merchants and other wine producers.
The German authorities, however, regard this measure as an aid for closing production, processing and marketing capacities within the meaning of the Community guidelines on state aids in the agriculture sector. In the current state of affairs the Commission has serious doubts on the compatibility of the measure with the Common Market, because the aid measure does not comply with the conditions for the closing of production set out in the Community guidelines mentioned above. This impression is reinforced also by information sent to the Commission by a plaintiff, who has pointed out that the measure would not at all be in the general interest of the wine sector.
According to Council Regulation (EC) No 659/1999, laying down detailed rules for state aid procedures, the Commission shall initiate the formal investigation procedure where it finds doubts as to the compatibility with the Internal Market of a state aid measure. The decision to open the formal investigation procedure does not prejudge the final outcome. The Commission is requesting Germany to submit all relevant information for a more detailed assessment of this measure within one month. In addition, interested parties can submit their comments on the aid measure within one month of the date of publication in the Official Journal of the decision to open the formal investigation procedure. The Commission will endeavour to conclude its examination within 18 months.