Crisisdistillatie van wijn te starten in Spanje en Griekenland (en)
The Wine Management Committee voted today on proposals from the European Commission to open crisis distillation of wine in Spain and Greece. For Spain a maximum of 300,000 hectolitres of quality wine can be offered for distillation. For Greece crisis distillation has been opened for a maximum quantity of 370,000 hectolitres of table wine and 130,000 hectolitres of quality wine.
Commenting on the opening of distillation Mariann Fischer Boel, i Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural development, said: "Once again we are spending large amounts of money on getting rid of surplus wine, when we should be spending it on improving our competitiveness. What's worse, both countries are distilling `quality' wine. This is exactly why we are calling for an urgent and profound reform of our wine market."
Considerable surpluses have been recorded on the wine markets in different Member States resulting in a fall in prices and a worrying rise in stocks. The existing wine Common Market Organisation (CMO) provides for the possibility of a crisis distillation in the event of exceptional market disturbances due to major surpluses.
At the beginning of June, the Commission already opened distillation for France and Italy for a total quantity of 5.6 million hectolitres (see IP/06/748). Today, crisis distillation has also been opened for Spain and Greece. The price paid for the wine to be distilled is € 1.914 per %vol and per hl for table wine and € 3.00 per % vol per hl for quality wine. The total cost for the EU budget is € 22.2 million.
The raw alcohol resulting from this distillation can only be used for industrial purposes or as biofuel in order not to disturb the market for potable alcohol, which is supplied largely by another distillation system also foreseen in the CMO.
The proposals still have to be formally adopted by the Commission and will apply from 18 July 2006.
For the documents and press releases on the wine reform, see: