European wine in crisis? Meanwhile, the EU finances South African wineries

While European wine (andItaly is no exception) is in crisis, the EU Commission finances South African wine within the framework of cooperation and development aid.

The controversy was launched in recent days by the French agricultural organisations, which, struggling with a robust vine grubbing-up plan launched with a view to reducing production, have had their request for EU support to accompany the scrapping of vineyards rejected. The French vignerons therefore literally revolted when they discovered within the framework of cooperation and development aid a EUR 15 million allocation in favour of South African viticulture. 'Is it possible,' they asked, 'that there are no resources for our crisis but there are for the development of South African wines?'

South Africa is one of the 'New World' wine countries that, together with New Zealand and Chile, has been competing with European wine on international markets for a little over 20 years now.

The French protest was relaunched in Italy by Filiera Italia. 'It is paradoxical,' commented the CEO of Filiera Italia, Luigi Scordamaglia, 'that while there is talk of reducing the resources of the CAP and promotion programmes, Europe finds funds to allocate to competing supply chains outside the Union. This further undermines Europe's credibility in the eyes of our farmers because of a Brussels technocracy out of touch with political expediency'.

Beyond the amount and agreements dating back years,' they added from Filiera Italia, 'it is completely incomprehensible and unacceptable that the commission should now follow up on such commitments, continuing to allocate public resources to agricultural supply chains in third countries, while European farms are facing a phase of serious difficulty and fundamental tools for ensuring competitiveness and sustainability in the primary sector are being called into question.