Following the adoption of Regulation (EC) Nº 479/2008 of April 2008, which established common organization of the market in wine, the European Union considered it necessary to amend Regulation (EC) Nº 1234/2007, the so-called “Single CMO Regulation”, in order to adapt the conditions of wine market regulations to the common conditions. These amendments have been included in the Regulation Nº 491/2009 of May 25th, published in the OJEU on June 17th, 2009.

As highlighted in the Single CMO Regulation, the simplification involved by such Regulation was not meant to call into question policy decisions that had been taken over the years in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and therefore did not envisage to provide for any new instruments or measures. The Single CMO Regulation thus reflects the policy decisions taken up to the moment when its text was proposed by the Commission.

As specified in the Single CMO Regulation, only those provisions of the wine sector which were not subject to any policy reforms were initially incorporated into the Single CMO Regulation. These substantive provisions which were subject to policy amendments were to be incorporated into the Single CMO Regulation once they had been enacted. As the Commission highlighted in the proposal put forward in 2008, given that such substantive provisions have now been enacted, the wine sector should now be fully incorporated into the Single CMO Regulation by way of introducing the policy decisions taken in Regulation (EC) Nº 479/2008 into the Single CMO Regulation.

Regulation Nº 491/2009 therefore amends the Single CMO Regulation accordingly to those provisions.

Among the areas included in the Reform of the Single CMO Regulation and its adaptation to the regime of the wine sector, there are some references to this sector in relation to quota systems and production potential, including the regulation of standards on concerning potential illegal plantation, the planting rights regime and the transition starts.

• Producers shall grub up at their own cost areas planted with vines without a corresponding planting
• right, where applicable, after August 31st 1998.
• Producers shall, against the payment of a fee and not later than 31 December 2009, regularise areas planted with vines without a corresponding planting right, where applicable, before September 1st 1998.

The end of the transitional ban on new plantings on December 31st 2015.

Member States may adopt stricter national rules in respect of the award of new planting rights or replanting rights. They may require that the respective applications and the relevant information to be supplied therein be supplemented by additional information necessary for monitoring the development of production potential.

Moreover, the Regulation also establishes the need to respect de principles of consistency and compatibility that will guide the rules governing the attribution of Community funds to Member States and the use of those funds by Member States through national support programmes to finance specific support measures to assist the wine sector.

This Regulation will enter into force on the seventh day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, and it will apply from August 1st 2009.