Restructuring and planting vineyards in the EU – Unclear impact on competitiveness and limited environmental ambition

Summary:

The EU provides wine growers with support for vineyard restructuring to make them more competitive. This could also improve sustainable production and the environmental footprint of wine growing. Wine growers need to obtain authorisation before planting new vineyards, which are limited in number, so as to avoid excessive supply with negative social and environmental effects. We found that EU support has an unclear impact on the competitiveness of wine growers. There are flaws in the design and implementation of the planting authorisation scheme, and the EU’s wine policy falls short of common agricultural policy’s environmental objectives. We recommend that the Commission should target the EU’s actions better to foster competitiveness of wine growers and increase the environmental ambition of the wine sector.

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