Brussels, Dec. 18 - Portugal, the current president country of the European Union, suspended negotiations late on Tuesday over reforming the EU's wine regime to allow ministers more time to hammer out an overnight deal on fish quotas.
EU agriculture and fisheries ministers began a three-day meeting on Monday to agree two main agenda items: wine reform and permitted fish catches, by country and species, for 2008.
Both have proved immensely difficult, with draft compromise deals on the two issues floating around national EU delegations. Finally, Portugal decided to focus on getting a deal on fish quotas and resume the wine reform talks on Wednesday.
Many EU countries have the same ministers for both fisheries and agriculture policy areas.
EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel wants to get rid of wine surpluses by paying winemakers to dig up vines make EU wines more competitive against New World rivals.
But her plans have run into major opposition, raising the hackles of major wine-producing countries France and Italy.
As the talks enter their final stages, Fischer Boel has offered more concessions to get a deal, officials said.
In a first compromise offered to member states on Monday, she back-tracked in a number of key areas. One of the plan's controversial proposals, to ban sugar used in winemaking to boost alcohol content, has now gone, for example.
A second offer has already been drafted, said to contain extra concessions to placate key producer countries like France, Italy and Spain -- also the world's leading three winemakers -- in specific areas of interest to their national wine industries.
That paper will be presented to the bloc's 27 agriculture ministers at 11 a.m. local (1000 GMT) on Wednesday, officials said.
Home to some of the most famous labels, such as Champagne, Burgundy and Rioja, the European Union is also the world's top producer, consumer, importer and exporter of wine.
Not only does Europe produce too much wine that is not being drunk, it also then spends public money to distill the surplus into industrial alcohol or biofuels.
Fischer Boel has already yielded to pressure from top wine producer France, letting subsidised distillation continue for three more years -- instead of scrapping it immediately.
She also agreed to extend the EU's existing ban on new vine plantings until 2015 before it is abolished. Some countries want to keep the ban even longer, while others would prefer it not to end at all.
Vine planting is strictly controlled in the EU and, with few exceptions, no new plantings are allowed until mid-2010.
Many earlier problems have been smoothed over, such as a carrot-and-stick plan to encourage winemakers to dig up vines. Fischer Boel has yielded ground here, reducing the target area to be dug up and the scheme's length from five years to three.