Commission launches High-level Group for EU wine sector

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 12 - At least three meetings will be held between September and December to finalize recommendations for Brussels by the beginning of 2025 to address the challenges of the EU wine sector, which is increasingly exposed to "uncertain" exports and "unpredictable harvests" attributable to "more frequent and more severe weather events".
    The High-level Group for EU wine sector policy, which was announced by the European Commission in June, meets for the first time on Wednesday September 11 to provide input for the discussion on the post-2027 CAP future, a proposal on which should arrive from the European Commission "in the summer of 2025".
    Pierre Bascou, representative of the European Commission's DG Agri, set the terms and agenda of the initiative for wine in a meeting with MEPs of the Agriculture Committee (Agri) of the European Parliament held on September 5.
    The sector - he admitted to MEPs - "has increasingly faced significant challenges over the past few years" on "both the consumption and production fronts".
    While the "significant drop in consumption is due to a combination of factors", such as the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic or Russia's aggression in Ukraine, on the production front the sector has been affected by "the increase in agricultural input costs", Bascou noted.
    According to estimates by the European Commission, the sector creates around 3 million direct and indirect full-time jobs, most of them in rural areas, and it contributes around €130 billion to the EU's GDP, including the direct and induced value generated along the entire supply chain.
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    (ANSA).