Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 265)
MONDAY 7 MARCH 2007
MS KATERINA BATZELLI
Q260 Lord Bach:
Good; we will see. As far as "national envelopes" are
concerned, and you have been discussing that, I really want to
ask a more detailed question. It seemed as though the Parliament
was unable to come to an agreement on how the "national envelope"
should be allocated among Member States. Can you give us a little
bit of information about the discussions that took place and any
ideas on how agreement on this might be finally reached?
Ms Batzelli: First, I would like to say that
all my answers were in order to inform you what happened "behind
the door".
Q261 Chairman:
We are very appreciative of that.
Ms Batzelli: You can read my report and you
have all the experience to understand that I would like to say
what my last six months was like. If I can turn to allocation
of budgets, the first question of my colleague was, what are we
going to take from that market? There are several approaches.
First, the Commission does not have the tolerance in its Communication
to propose some criteria. It was open. They did not mention anything,
so I took the responsibility, and I mean that, to propose some
criteria. I was against the historical criteria. Why? Because
the distillation system has been distorted and it depends on the
budget. I will explain the reasons for that. It was not only the
distillation; it was also the question of the must. Italy takes
60% of the budget for the must; and of this budget, that is around
€98 million, Sicily takes 70%.
Q262 Chairman:
Ah!
Ms Batzelli: The Italians have a problem. Listen
to the story, because it is a big story. When we allocate the
budget on historical criteria, Italy has a problem because in
the last two years they have had autonomous regions, which means
that on historical criteria the Sicilian regions will take these
packages of money but not all of Italy. So northern Italy has
a problem with the historical criteria of the south—you
do not understand my life!—and, of course, the Spanish have
the same problem for the whole country, because as a whole they
take around 300(?), something less, of the wine sector because
of distillation and must. And, of course, the Spanish do not want
to lose 25% of that. Germany does not take any money from the
budget except for restructuring problems, which is very important
in the sector, for all of them, and nobody can say that they do
not take money for restructuring problems. It is for quality;
it is for everything. So in all the north they do not produce
wine but they have a collision with Germany. They do not want
historical criteria, and in Spain and some regions of Italy they
want historical criteria. I was in favour at the beginning of
mixed criteria: surface area and volume of the wine. That means
what would be the result of the restructuring programme? It is
calculated on the surface area and the volume. Nobody wanted it
except Germany. I am Greek. I come from the south of Europe. I
have a problem with my government but I am sure they are conservative,
so I can manage this a little bit. But everybody thinks that we
have to put on the table more realistic criteria because if we
allocate it on the basis of historical criteria we take with us
all the distortion of the budget into the next reform. This is
the main point. I do not know what will happen in the Council.
Something will be historical as a gift to the Spanish. I do not
know how much. It depends on the negotiations.
Q263 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
We come from the perspective that we ought to encourage flair
and enterprise to persuade consumers to buy more wine, and therefore
people should be able to put on their labels what they want and
market the wine how they want as long as it is true and they can
verify it and it is audited, and there seems to be again a dispute
between you and the Commission on this issue. Perhaps you could
tell me what your position is.
Ms Batzelli: I will give you a very general
answer. The labelling must be very simple, clear and with few
words, not because it is like the labelling of Australia and California
wines where they know the market quite well, but to take into
account the attitude of the consumer, that they do not have time
to read so many details on the back of the bottle.
Q264 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
But, if a business man thinks he can put lots of words which will
persuade the consumer, can he not put on what he thinks will sell
wine?
Ms Batzelli: He can do it even now, especially
for the wines of Geographical Indication and qualité
du vin. It is a point that has not yet been clarified and,
as far as that is concerned, I am not wedded to the paper on the
bottle, but I tried in my original text, and something remains
of the bones of this proposal, to say that we have to improve
the labelling of table wine. That is the big problem.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: I agree with
you.
Q265 Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer:
Your report does mention some of the environmental benefits, such
as vine-growing stopping soil erosion. I wonder if there is anything
you would like to expand on in terms of benefits? And also did
you come across any negative effects in environmental terms?
Ms Batzelli: Our approach for the environmental
issues was not concentrated on the real question of the environment
because vineyards secure the environment anyhow. This cultivation
is friendly to the environment, but it was a mechanism to give
incentives to the farmers that were going to remain in the sector
after grubbing-up, with more obligations to improve the quality
of the wine first, and, second, during the commercial or cultivation
period to limit with the co-operation of the wine producer the
final production of grapes, because if we delete the distillation
system somebody has to tell the farmers, "Please do not produce
such high quality grapes". And of course we have to give
them the initiative to bring down the production. It was a mechanism
to control the production and the market.
Chairman: Thank you very much. That was
a lovely, open, frank discussion.
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