(fra kommisjonsforordningen)

(1) Regulation (EU) 2026/471 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) introduces a series of measures to adapt the wine production potential, to manage the wine market and to support the wine sector to address the different challenges affecting it and to adapt the sector to new market developments in a context of high international uncertainty. Among other measures, Regulation (EU) 2026/471 enlarged the scope of Article 216 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013. In addition to distillation of wine, Member States may now seek approval from the Commission to make national payments to support green harvesting and voluntary grubbing up of productive vineyards in cases of crisis under certain conditions. The Commission has been empowered to supplement that Article by laying down rules on the general conditions of eligibility and priority criteria in respect of such national payments, as well as to determine the market situations under which such measures are justified, to determine the calculation method of such payments and to set rules on the coherence with other Common Agricultural Policy support measures.

(2) In this context, it is pertinent to define the conditions for the existence of a crisis situation for which Member States may seek approval to make national payments for distillation, green harvesting and grubbing up of productive vineyards as well as the categories and colours of wine such measures may be applied to.

(3) Wine distillation and green harvesting aim to remove excess wine from the market, and to prevent such wine being produced before the harvest, respectively. While these measures are appropriate in situations when the wine market is affected by conjunctural oversupply situations that generate, or threat to generate, market disturbance, the permanent grubbing up of productive vineyards aims to address structural market imbalances between the supply and the demand. Therefore, the criteria to identify the market circumstances that justify the approval of the national payments for such measures need to reflect on the one hand a conjunctural market oversupply in the short and medium term and a longer-term structural market imbalance on the other hand. Therefore, the criteria to identify the market circumstances that can justify the approval of such national payments have to be defined differently for wine distillation and green harvesting on the one hand and for the permanent grubbing up of productive vineyards on the other hand. Considering the strong segmentation of the Union wine market, it is pertinent to allow Member States to target the measures to the appropriate geographical scope and to the types of wines affected by the market crisis. Therefore, it is pertinent to allow that the measures to be defined by Member States may apply at regional or national level and for one or more categories and colours of wine.

(4) It is also pertinent to set basic eligibility criteria depending on the content of the measure. Only wine growers cultivating vineyards for the purpose of wine production may be eligible under certain conditions to national payments for green harvesting and the grubbing up of productive vineyards, while other operators producing, marketing or distilling wine may benefit from national payments in respect of wine distillation. In this respect, in case of wine distillation, it is important that when the beneficiaries are not wine producers, Member States ensure that the economic benefit resulting from the national payments is passed on to the wine producers. To ensure consistency of the Union wine policy, it should be avoided that winegrowers holding vineyards planted without authorisation benefit from support for grubbing up or green harvesting. For the same reasons of policy coherence, only wines which fulfil the relevant Union legal requirements and conditions, including the requirements for wines bearing a protected designation of origin or a protected geographical indication, when applicable, may benefit from public support for distillation.

(5) To ensure a fair level playing field among wine producers in different Member States and to avoid distortion of competition, it is pertinent to set the elements that Member States should consider in the calculation of the maximum support to be provided in the form of national payments for the green harvesting, wine distillation and grubbing up of productive vineyards.

(6) To avoid that green harvesting and wine distillation become a regular market outlet for wines from regions affected by structural market imbalance, it is pertinent that Member States applying such measures recurrently address also the underlying structural causes for such imbalance. Therefore, new authorisations for green harvesting and distillation should be conditional on the parallel application of voluntary grubbing-up of productive vineyards and on the application of the conditions, provided under Article 58(1), second subparagraph, of Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) when implementing restructuring and reconversion interventions. These conditions aim to avoid that restructuring and reconversion interventions contribute to the increase of yields in regions already affected by a structural market imbalance.

(7) To ensure the proper functioning and a harmonised approach to the system of application for the national payments referred to in this Regulation, it is pertinent to set certain requirements on the information to be provided by the Member States to the Commission to justify their request for approval and to provide for certain notification requirements on the effective implementation of the measures within a certain yearly deadline.

(8) In view of the challenges the wine sector is currently facing, it is necessary to give Member States the possibility to implement the measures provided by this Regulation during the coming marketing year. Therefore, this Regulation should enter into force on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union,