Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-11-Speech-2-019"
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"en.20071211.7.2-019"2
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"Mr President
or, to quote Goethe, life is too short to drink bad wine. These sayings sum up the essential point of reforming the EU market in wine. What our report is about is the quality of European wine, which can certainly stand comparison with that of imports from the New World. So what is the
? In 2006, wine production accounted for 5% of the total value of agricultural output in the EU. With 45% of the world’s vineyard surface, 65% of its production, 57% of its consumption and 70% of the volume of exports, European wine enjoys a leading position in the world market. In the world of wine, we are a global superpower!
Accordingly, there was a need for action to consolidate our superpower status and particularly to raise the quality of our wines. The reforms that you proposed, Commissioner, included an immediate end to crisis distillation. I believe that many of the things you mentioned, such as private storage and the ending of export subsidies, must aid and, of course, the enhancement of wine with sugar, are central points of your proposals. We have to say, however, that they reflected a rather technocratic perspective from the outset, addressing questions such as whether there should be a link between sugaring and must aid.
In my view this Parliament has negotiated quite a good compromise between North and South, given that their respective concerns have dominated this issue. In the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development we struck a very, very good balance with our compromises. In this context my special thanks go to the rapporteur, Mr Castiglione, who made great efforts to broker compromises, and we managed to take account of everyone’s concerns.
I believe we have moulded the initial technocratic solution into a new elegant shape. We have a balance between North and South. I also wish to thank you, Commissioner, for indicating in your speech that you essentially intend to follow this line.
What are the main points? Besides the compromise that allows continued sugaring, another key aspect of our report is the protection of regional products.
In the light of this quality drive for European wine, there is also a continuing need for national support measures, and these have been set at EUR 1.3 billion. We believe that these matters should remain part of the first pillar, so that payments can actually go direct to growers. In addition, there was a need to refer – and this, I believe, is one of our primary achievements – to the need to give special attention to designations of origin and geographical indications on labels. That is an extremely important issue in our view, because indications of the geographical origin of wines are, of course, a matter of intellectual property. That has to be protected, and I believe we have obtained a very good compromise on this point.
The ALDE Group will support these compromises, that is to say the whole package of compromises, because we believe they constitute a good solution. We hope that the Council will now adopt our suggestions. The voice of the European Parliament is the voice of the people as well as the voice of the wine producers and consumers. We ask you, Commissioner, to fight for these things too in your dealings with the Council and in the public domain in general."@en1
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