Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-11-Speech-2-052"
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"en.20071211.7.2-052"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, there is no doubt that new rules of play are needed in the wine-making sector. European viticulture is the last part of our agricultural policy that is still not reformed and still works on the principle of ‘the higher the yield, the more money from Brussels’. This often leads to wine producers paying more attention to quantity rather than quality, which has not escaped our European customers. They are increasingly choosing wines from California, Chile or South Africa in preference to our Moravian, Czech, French or Italian wines. We should support quality and competitiveness. However, this must not involve discriminating against certain Member States while favouring others. If we really want to agree on a reform of the wine sector, it cannot include the proposed ban on the use of beet sugar for wine enrichment.
Each of our countries has different climatic conditions and different traditions. The geographic environment of the countries situated in the more northerly parts of Europe is vastly different from that of the southern ones. Our colder climate often makes it necessary to enrich our wines with sugar. In my country sugar has been used for wine enrichment for over 200 years; it is a traditional method. The European Commission suggests banning sugar enrichment and substituting it with wine must concentrate instead. Concentrated wine must, if not subsidised, costs at least twice the price of sugar, besides which it is only produced by a few countries. If we were to use wine must concentrate or rectified must concentrate to enrich our wines, we would have to import it from other countries, which would contravene one of the basic principles of European viticulture, and that is defining the origin of the wine by the origin of the grapes. Apart from that it would raise the price of the wine and consequently make it less competitive on the market. That, in my opinion, would be discrimination. While the Commission objects to the sweetening of wines, nobody seems to be concerned about their souring, that is about the addition of tartaric acid, mainly in the southern European countries. I would like to raise a glass of honest wine to an honest reform without discrimination and favouritism."@en1
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