Brussels, 16st July 2014 – At the occasion of the 6th round of negotiations between the EU and the USA for the TTIP (Brussels, May 14-18 July 2014), the European wine exporters have urged the negotiators to place an ambitious wine trade deal at the heart of the TTIP agreement.
The Stakeholder Forum hosted by the European Commission has given the opportunity to relevant stakeholders from both sides of the Atlantic to present to the negotiators the key challenges and opportunities for their respective sectors.
CEEV has underlined the importance of the inclusion of an ambitious wine chapter into the TTIP which improve the conditions for the bilateral wine trade and scale-up the bilateral cooperation into a true win-win partnership focused on consumers interest, fair competition, and facilitation of bilateral and international wine trade. The US market is the top wine consumer country worldwide, and the EU is the top destination of US wine exports.
“TTIP provides a unique framework to set up effective mechanisms to anticipate and remove potential trade irritants, prevent unnecessary, disproportionate, or unjustified trade barriers, and promote further convergence of rules according to relevant specific international standards” – declared José Ramon Fernández, Secretary General of CEEV. “Wine trade will greatly benefit from an ambitious wine chapter within the TTIP, that will brings to our sectors and consumers the advantages of a broad bilateral strategic commercial and investment partnership”.
CEEV advocates for the inclusion of an ambitious wine chapter into the TTIP allowing to i.a. eliminate tariffs, simplify certifications and administrative procedures, improve regulatory convergence, tackle discriminatory measures, pragmatically address other emerging opportunities and fix pending unsolved issues – including of course the full protection of all wine GIs from both countries. “The 2006 wine agreement was a first, important, yet clearly insufficient step. Impasse on “semi-generics” is no longer a sustainable option” declared José Ramon Fernandez. “TTIP needs to achieve solutions ensuring the protection of all the wine GIs from both sides”.
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Note to Editors
Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins(CEEV – www.ceev.eu represents the wine companies in the industry and trade in the European Union: still wines, sparkling wines, liqueur wines, aromatised wines and other vine products. It brings together 24 national organisations. With more than 7.000 companies, mainly SMEs, and more than 200.000 direct jobs in the EU, its members produce and market the vast majority of quality European wines, with and without a geographical indication, and account for over 90% of European wine exports. In 2013, with around 8,9 billion euros worth of exports, the wine sector made a contribution of over 6,5 billion euros to the EU trade balance.
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