Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“After decades of subsidizing expansion, Brussels is now paying to destroy vineyards, without fixing the distortions it created. The European Union is paying to uproot vineyards. The new Wine Package, proposed in March 2025 with a provisional agreement reached in December 2025, proposes among several measures, the possibility of using EU funds for the voluntary destruction of productive vines, which represents the most visible sign of a market distortion created by decades of intervention from Brussels. Successive policies supporting the wine sector progressively disconnected production from market signals. The result was a growing imbalance, marked by persistent surpluses and, later, by subsidies aimed at vineyard removal itself.” 902/12/26)