Surplus puts sour taste in French wine industry

Press, 30 April 1984, Page 20

Surplus puts sour taste in French wine industry

By

Audrey Stuart

of Reuters in Paris

France’s 750,000 producers of table wine, already squeezed by tough competition in Europe, say their livelihoods are threatened by changes to the European Community’s complex system of farm subsidies. Violent scenes have greeted a Community decision to stop paying aid for wine storage and plans to change the rules governing the distillation of surpluses into pure a lc°h°i- ...... . “The situation is becoming very, very serious, Mr Georges Vabre, director-general of France’s largest winegrowers’ union, told Reuters. French table wine, produced mostly in the poorer south of the country, has been hit hard by cheap imports from Italy. The European Commission’s proposals on distillation and the planned entry into the Community of two more wine producers — Spain and Portugal — have also

helped provoke a series of protests in southern France. Angry producers blew up a rail link between France and Spain in March. A demonstration of 8000 winegrowers in the south-eastern city °f Nimes earlier this month ended in clashes with police. ’Mr Vabre’s Confederation des Associations Viticoles de France (F.A.V.F.), which led the Nimes protests, has no plans for more demonstrations. But Mr Vabre sa y S sporadic protests by local producer groups cannot be ruled Q Ut . , . There is no shortage of customers for France’s top-quality wines from well-known vineyards, but three-quarters of all wines produced in the Community are low-priced table wines of which consumption is falling. i The 10 Agriculture Ministers Jiecided to separate the wine sec-

tor from other agricultural issues last month when they put together a package of farm price rises for 1984-85. “It is not possible, seriously, to negotiate the entry of Spain and Portugal into the Community without a revision (of the wine sector) especially of the distillation mechanisms,” the French Farm Minister, Mr Michel Rocard, said recently. Quality control of table wines is not as strict as that for the more highly-regarded “appelation controlee” wines. The Ministers decided to end three-month Community storage subsidies from September, the start of the next wine year, although they will allow France and Italy to pay the aid themselves. Mr Vabre said the producers hoped, the French Government woulcf pay the aid, though they

would have preferred it to continue to come from the Commission. If the Government paid the subsidies, it would be only for this year and no-one knew what would be decided next time round, he said. France produces four billion litres of table wine a year. Italy produces six billion. French production is stable. Italy’s is increasing every year. A Commission spokesman said the current system of three-month and six-month storage subsidies was intended to persuade producers to store part of their output and to help prevent a glut on the market. Now there is a Community wine surplus, the three-month storage aid is used by producers automatically. The distillation system, revised two years ago, has been reasonably successful and prevented repeats of tjje bitter conflicts

between France and Italy seen in the 19705, Mr Vabre said. Part of the system — the obligatory distillation, which is set in December if the Commission believes there will be a glut — has never been used. Mr Vabre says some Community countries understate their estimated output and that December is too early to know whether there will be a large surplus. France wants a quota system for table wines to help stop the decline in the area cultivated for wine in the country. The Commission spokesman said any quotas would probably be introduced through the distillation process. Another major change proposed by the Commission is to phase out the use of sugar in wine. Sugar is used in wine-making in the more northerly European regions, where less sun means grapes produce less sugar to turn intwalcohol.

In place of sugar, the Commission wants growers to use grape must from the southerly part of the Community, especially Italy and Greece.

Grape must costs twice as much as beet sugar, so West Germany and Luxembourg — both of which use sugar extensively in their wine-making — are strongly opposed to the proposal.

France’s main problem is that winegrowers in the south do not have the prospect of moving out of wine production into other agricultural products, Mr Vabre says.

Unlike milk producers, they have not been promised any Government aid to help restructure their industry. They have already shown the Government that they are ready ta» fight if nothing is done to help (them. >