“The Commission has authorized a French aid scheme amounting to 120 million euros aimed at supporting wine growers in the context of the war waged by Russia against Ukraine,” it said in a press release. . As part of this regime authorized under the temporary crisis and transition framework for state aid, “the aid will take the form of direct subsidies”, specifies Brussels.
The scheme aims to support wine growers, who need liquidity to partially compensate for losses caused in particular by the war in Ukraine, by allowing them to reduce their production potential. To benefit from it, wine growers will have to commit to permanently uprooting the vineyards concerned.
Many difficulties. The war in Ukraine has affected French wine growers due in particular to the shortage of glass bottles manufactured by Ukrainian factories which have closed, increased production costs and disruptions in supply chains. These elements have been added in certain wine production areas to the growing disenchantment with red wine, to the difficulties of exporting to China and the United States, to Covid-19 and to inflation. France, currently the world’s leading producer of wine (48 million hectoliters in 2023), is experiencing an imbalance between supply and demand.
For Bordeaux, the first AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée) vineyard in France with 103,000 hectares, the European Commission has already validated in November 2023 a “sanitary” grubbing plan of 8,000 hectares, which could include an additional 1,500 hectares of here next winter. Officially aimed at fighting against flavescence sore, a disease which threatens abandoned vines, it indirectly makes it possible to reduce production volumes in a vineyard very shaken by the fall in consumption.
© Agence France-Presse
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