The European Commission has announced the release of €40 million to support French wine producers facing declining consumption and international trade tensions. This funding will come from the European Union's agricultural reserve.
According to European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen, these funds will finance a crisis distillation program. This mechanism aims to remove surplus volumes from the market by transforming them into alcohol for industrial use, thereby helping to stabilize prices. The French wine industry had called for such a measure, estimating its needs at €80 million.
Measures to reduce costs for farmers
In addition to this support for the wine sector, Brussels has decided to suspend tariffs for one year on certain imports of nitrogen fertilizers and raw materials, with the exception of products from Russia and Belarus. This measure is expected to save European farmers and manufacturers approximately €60 million, in a context of rising production costs.
The Commissioner stressed that European agriculture remained under pressure due to the consequences of the war in Ukraine, animal diseases, and trade tensions with the United States and China. He also raised the possibility of using some of the revenue from the carbon border adjustment mechanism to offset the burdens placed on farmers.
Finally, Christophe Hansen defended the free trade agreements negotiated by the European Union as a lever to develop agricultural exports, while specifying that the decision to provisionally apply the agreement with Mercosur had not yet been made.
