Mariann Fischer Boel - The Wine Reform

The Wine Reform

As European Union agriculture commissioner, Boel has been a vocal advocate for various vine pull schemes in an attempt to compensate for the 1.7 billion bottle wine surplus that Europe has had for the last several vintages. Every year the European Union spends 500 million euros to distill the excess wine into industrial alcohol. Under the 2007 reform, subsidies for distilling unwanted wines are being phased out, and the money is being spent instead on a broad menu of measures to make the wine sector more competitive and to care for vine landscapes. In an important step to prepare for liberalisation, a three-year voluntary “grubbing-up scheme” – with strong environmental safeguards – is offering money to uncompetitive producers who wish to dig up their vines and leave the sector.

Critics have claimed that the implementation of Boel's plan will see a 5% drop in wine industry jobs and 7% decrease in wine prices by 2009 though most agree that the price of wine will eventually rise again. Supporters of Boel's plan have noted that European wine consumption has decreased an average of 0.65 percent a year and that in a few years imports of New World wine into Europe will surplus European exports which will also have negative effects on wine industry jobs and wine prices.