Wine regions oppose 'catastrophic' EU expansion plans

The article estates two diferent and opposite outcomes for the reform. Firstly it declares that it will be followed by an outburst of new plantations, secondly, that another outcome will be the dramatic fall of prices. Who in his sane mind would invest thousends of euros in a plantation that is going to yield loses?
Apart from that, either if we keep our vine growers from planting off new fields, how would that stop other countries from doing so, and therefore plummeting world prices?

It is not about keeping advantages, it is about recognizing that small growers and wineries would not survive; they would go out of business. Just think about the grocery super stores who do not buy from local farmers but only from huge corporate growers.

Who needs regulation in vine planting? Are we in a soviet economy? Why vine and not potato, carrots, cattle?
This is a case of people defending their advantages. Free plantations would also mean a better competition base vis-à-vis New World producers.

Is it just me, or does this seem like a hoax?
Hasn't the EU just spent years and millions paying people to rip up their old vineyards? Now they want new ones planted. You couldn't make it up.
I would have thought that the EU would have had other things on its mind at the moment, too, such as what to do if the EURO disintegrates...

No wonder Europeans are in such disaray. Why should any government have any say in what a landowner does on hos property (outside of normal zoning of course)? Iff California had taken that tack 50 years ago there would still be just a dozen wineries in the Napa Valley!

Myself I'm a winegrower in the South of France, where proper marketing of the wines has been a problem since decades. My colleagues around and myself are absolutely against this project. This will impoverish quality, do a lot of harm to the image of wine and will make life very hard for those who at the time are carrying the good image wine can have.
Most probably the project comes from lobbyists and large groups that want to gain market shares and are only interested in low prices. The effect would indeed be worst cathastrophy since the invasion of phylloxera.

This was very uncritical repetition of scaremongering propaganda distributed by a certain group of wine growers.

Keeping the system of planting rights is really only a question of protecting the interests of those wine producers that already have vineyards - so a way of protecting the rents of those that already have.

It is not in the interests of consumers to keep the planting rights system. A more open system would be in the interest of consumers.

Or is the logic, according to the article, that e.g. the 100,000 hectares of Bordeaux land, within AOC but not currently planted, are not worthy of being AOC and should not be allowed to be planted? If that is the case, then you should reduce the size of the AOC, not retain a protectionist system of planting rights.

It is in the wine consumers' interest to abolish the planting rights.

It seems only a moment since the EU was trying to restrict yields and improve quality. How can this new-found expansionist zeal help anyone?

It seems to me that this article confuses two things: planting rights and wine classification. That planting rights are supposed to be abolished, together with subsidies to perennial "emergency distillation" of surplus wine and so on, was already part of the 2009 decision on the reform of CAP as I remember it. It's not clear from the article if the protests are against the details of the implementation, or if they wish to go back to more regulation and more subsidies? Keeping the planting rights system would, I assume, be the same as trying to prevent additional vineyards in emerging wine regions in e.g. England, Belgium and the Netherlands.

If anyone wishes to plant a new vineyard on land they own, and with their own money, be it England, Mosel, Languedoc or why not Denmark, why should they be stopped just because there wasn't a vineyard there before? If they can' sell the wine at a profit, it will be their problem after the reform, as I understand it. But why anyone who makes unsellable wine should get subsidies from taxpayers just because their vineyard has existed for a long time, has always been beyond my understanding. If aren't able to make things right even with several generations' worth of experience and tradition to support me, to me that's a good reason to get out of business rather than to get subsidies.

And as to AOP/AOC regulations, if they are too liberal, a change is reasonably a national as long as they stay within the overall European AOP framework.