A top priority for newly re-elected Chairman of Copa and Cogecas Wine Working Party Thierry Coste for the next 2 years is to work on the new EU wine regime post-2020 to ensure a vibrant sector in the future.
Speaking after the vote in Brussels this week, Mr Coste said “I am positive about the impact of the new EU wine planting authorization system introduced on January 1 2016 – it’s much more beneficial than the original proposal. We will nevertheless monitor it to see how it works and share experiences between our member organisations. We will also work on simplifying the production implementing rules to make life easier for wine growers”. He continued: “A top priority for me is to start working on the new regime post-2020. The EU wine sector is a very important one accounting for 6 billion euros of the EUs trade balance and its vital to have a dynamic regime in place post 2020. Faced with increasing challenges like climate change, research and development needs to be stepped up to develop new varieties which are resistant to weather events like drought. Research into trunk diseases also needs to be encouraged. Finally, I believe we will need a restructuring fund post 2020 to help the sector adapt to the new challenges”.
Mr Coste is a wine grower with a 40 ha vineyard in France.