Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-13-Speech-2-267"
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"en.20070213.19.2-267"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we know that the reform that we are seeking to implement must be an appropriate response to the challenge of the competitiveness of the European wine market worldwide. We agree that Europe can only meet this challenge if it preserves and improves the quality of its wine, by enhancing its individuality. Not all the answers that we have found, however, fully correspond to this final aim. So we can say that the text adopted in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is the best possible text, but it nonetheless requires further modifications.
It is therefore right to carry out prudent reform, in stages, that is properly managed, based on the principle of subsidiarity with a view to respecting individual national and regional features. For all these reasons, agricultural funding should be kept under the first pillar: we need to implement educational campaigns to promote responsible consumption; to retain distillation measures, at least for now, as a security net for producers; to permit the Member States to restrict the grubbing-up of vines on the basis of rigid environmental and social criteria, giving preference to the protection of small, high-quality production.
As for retaining the rules in force on practices permitted for vinification, sugar enrichment and musts, I would say that the strenuous defence of these practices by some national delegations raises the problem of national interests as compared with those of the Union as a whole and points to the need to strengthen the concept of a united Europe, avoiding the market distortions involved in excessive nationalism. If what is at stake is improving the competitiveness of European wines, the proposal to support the practice of adding saccharose and of using musts runs counter to this, because the use of such additives lowers quality and reduces differences, whereas these are, in fact, the best expressions of wine cultivation.
Perhaps we might have made a better effort on this aspect, by posing the question of Community interests and by asking, as I am doing, for all the EU countries – without exception – to agree that it is inappropriate and politically incorrect to place national interests before European interests and that it is vital to find a fair balance between these requirements."@en1
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