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The EU assembly also called for subsidies for wine enrichment with pure
must grape juice, practiced in southern countries. Northern members like
Germany may continue to add sugar. It also refused a proposal to fully
liberalize planting rights for vintners producing quality wines on areas
previously not used as vineyards by 2014.
Next week, EU agriculture ministers will hammer out a final compromise
on the reform, proposed to reverse falling sales and remove trade-distorting
measures.
The parliament's role is only consultative, and governments can overrule
the assembly on any of the amendments. But the vote by EU lawmakers-some
of them originally farmers by profession, is an important indicator of
trends in the member states.
On Tuesday, the EU's top agriculture official had already said that the
planned blanket ban on adding sugar to wine, a practice used by vintners
in countries with a cooler climate, such as Germany, Austria, Luxembourg
and the Czech Republic, to boost alcohol content in mass-market wines,
may be scrapped.
But EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said she would not agree
to a complete watering down of her proposals to boost sales by producing
more quality wines and to reduce "wine lakes" that cost hundreds
of millions of euros to get rid of.
The European Commission insists the bloated EU wine industry must cut
overproduction or risk further decline in the face of increased imports
of New World wines. Its proposals include pulling up unprofitable vineyards,
ending subsidies for massive and costly distillation of unsold wine into
industrial products, and harmonizing labeling to make it more consumer-friendly.
Among other amendments, the European Parliament called subsidies for
distillation to be maintained and for aid to producers of lower-quality
wines who decide to stop production to be disbursed within three years
instead of five.
The EU member states aim for a deal by the end of the year, although
the most contentious issues are yet to be settled.
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