Paris, July 4 - France, the world's largest producer of wine, said on Wednesday some of the proposals in the European Commission's ambitious reform of the wine sector were unacceptable as they went against French producers' interests.
Europe's farm chief unveiled a five-year plan on Wednesday that offers generous cash rewards to winemakers to encourage them to dig up some of their grape vines, hoping to drain the EU's substantial wine lakes.
"Although France can share the main objectives of this reform, substantial differences have appeared concerning ways to implement it," French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier said in a statement.
"This reform will only be accepted by France if it takes into account the interests of the French and European wine sectors," he added.
France, like other major European producing countries, has in recent years lost part of its traditional export markets to cheaper wines from the so-called New World, which includes Australia, Chile and the United States.
France's top-end wine producers are having successful sales abroad after an exceptional year in 2005, but many small middle- or low-end producers are selling their wine at a loss.
A cornerstone of the EU plan is to remove the least competitive producers from the market and help them start other activities.
Winemakers who wish to leave the sector will be offered a subsidy if they dig up their vines, with a target of 200,000 hectares as the total vine area to be removed from production.
The French farm ministry said the extraction of vines, which is voluntary, should be limited and supervised to help improving the vineyards' quality.
"Temporary extraction should be envisaged," it also said.
Vine planting is strictly controlled in the EU, both by area and approved grape variety. New plantings are not allowed until mid-2010 except under particular conditions. Fischer Boel wants to extend that ban until 2013 and then scrap it.
"The liberalisation of plantings rights after 2013 would be totally ill-timed and dangerous," the ministry said, adding that by removing a market management tool the Commission was taking the risk of major crises as output levels would inevitably vary.