Brussels, Dec. 18 - France opposed key parts of a European Union wine reform plan Tuesday, threatening to scuttle two years of brokering on how to make Europe's vintners more competitive again on world markets.
French Farm Minister Michel Barnier said the latest compromise proposals at a meeting of E.U. farm ministers still didn't meet French demands on three of the main issues.
Portuguese Farm Minister Jaime Silva, who is chairing the marathon meeting, has said he would prefer the meeting to end without agreement than with a substantially watered-down reform package.
"The money has its limits, and within those limits you need the courage to take sometimes tough decisions," Silva said. The negotiations were likely to continue Wednesday.
Little progress has been made on reconciling the free-market proposals of the E.U. Commission with the traditionalist and interventionist views of France, the world's preeminent wine producer.
Silva wants to keep within the current EUR1.3 billion budget set aside for Europe's wine producers but draw money away from subsidies that keep unprofitable vintners in business and push it toward marketing policies aimed at regained ground on New World producers.
He and E.U. Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel are also leading the drive to grub up huge swaths of vineyards and end distillation of unwanted wine.
Beside its great Bordeaux and Burgundy wine, France also produces far too much wine of inferior quality. Barnier is resisting the strong measures, saying they would put too many vintners out of business.
Fischer Boel insists on doing away with the "crisis distillation" of excess wine into industrial alcohol, which takes up EUR500 million in subsidies, but Barnier opposes it.
Fischer Boel wants to scrap rigid planting rights rules so profitable companies can boost production for wine that sells around the globe, but France insists it would be too destabilizing.
"You cannot deregulate the rights to production without risking overproduction which we would regret later," Barnier said.
Together with Germany and Austria, Barnier also opposed cuts in adding sugar to jack up the alcohol content of cheaper wines, a century-old tradition used in northern climes that lack the sunshine to develop sufficient natural sugars.
Europe still produces more than 60% of the world's wine. Over the past decade, though, imports have risen about 10% a year while exports haven't matched that pace. If the trend continues, overproduction would reach 15% of the total in three years' time.
At the same time, domestic consumption has declined in line with healthier living habits.
A first compromise by Fischer Boel to allow some sugar addition has already been rejected and individual negotiations with member states yielded little progress on Tuesday.
"A deal is still possible. It will depend on two, three member states," Silva said. "I asked my colleagues to stay a long week in Brussels."
Barnier still saw room for compromise.
"In the finishing straight, it is always a bit dramatic. Consensus is difficult but possible," he said.
There is a general consensus the European wine sector is in dire need of an overhaul. While prices for top-notch Bordeaux and Barolos have gone through the roof, other mass-marketed tipples increasingly have found competition from Australian, South African and American wines, which beat them both on price and taste.
Europe has clung to antiquated labeling, which increasingly confuses consumers, and intricate regional appellation structures that dumbfound all but the true aficionados.