Wine Trend 2010 #9: More protectionism in the EU

This is the trend that we most hop that we will be mistaken on. Over the last few years the EU agricultural policy (the CAP) regarding wine has mad quite a lot of progress towards a more open and market oriented regulation. This is largely thanks to the outgoing agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel and her diligent (but not always successful) work. It has often led to protests from the wine producers, and above all from the wine producers lobbying groups. Now it is time for a new commissioner and Dacian Ciolos from Romania has been nominated. His nomination has been greeted with cheers from the protection-loving wine lobby. Ciolos comes from a wine producing country (albeit not a big one) and the wine lobby hopes that he will show more sympathy towards their demands for subsidies, protection measure than what Fischer Boel did. Before we see what happens in reality in Brussels there is no way of knowing, of course, but let us hope that there will NOT be a trend towards more subsidies, more protectionism and other things that are only bad for consumers, and also bad for the wine sector in the long run.