Commission’s flexibility measures for wine promotion programmes agreed on by Member States

Today, Member States agreed to measures increasing flexibility in the management of promotion activities for the wine sector, part of their national support programmes. These measures were proposed by the European Commission in the context of increased import duties (+25%) imposed on EU wines exported to the US.

These new measures would apply to all EU wine and include:

• an increase of the rate of EU co-financing to 60% from 50% (with the operators financing the rest themselves)
• allowing Member States to modify the promotion activities of their national support programme more than twice a year
• the possibility to change the targeted markets (country, region and/ or town) of the already approved promotion activities, with no limitation on the new destination
• the suspension of the 5-year time limit on promotion activities until the end of the programming period (i.e. 15 October 2023)

Following the positive vote by Member States today, these regulations (two implementing acts) will now have to be adopted by the College. In addition, another regulation (a delegated act) will be under scrutiny, from the moment it's adopted, by the European Parliament and Council for a period of up to two months.

The European Commission will continue to closely monitor the impact of US measures on EU wine exports.

Related links

Wine market observatory

Wine in the EU