The Government of Pedro Sánchez

has turned a deaf ear to the Supreme Court ruling

of just two months ago and maintains the prohibition of new cava grape plantations for the next three campaigns, as published this Wednesday by the BOE.

This decision supports the policy of the Regulatory Council of the sector, based in Villafranca del Penedés (Barcelona), and prevents the development of the emerging market, at least until 2022, in regions such as Extremadura and the Valencian Community, among others, which have been multiplying your sales in the last campaigns.

Specifically, the judgment of the Supreme Court, after an appeal presented by the Junta de Extremadura, and before which there was no recourse, annulled two articles of Royal Decree 1338/2018, of October 29, for which

the Ministry had eliminated the query to the autonomous communities,

attributing to the Regulatory Council all the powers to decide on new plantations in Spain.

This decision, put into practice in December 2019 against the historical system of regulation of the sector, was interpreted as a new political nod by the Government of Sánchez to Catalonia before the beginning, then, of the legislature.

However, the court ruling, issued in January, established that the criterion on the restrictions of replanting and new plantations in the Denominations of Origin of a supra-autonomous nature, -such as that of Cava- must be established not by the Regulatory Council and yes by the Ministry of Agriculture, with the possibility in addition to the participation of the autonomous communities, which could issue recommendation reports in this regard.

After hearing the ruling,

the Junta de Extremadura asked the Ministry of Agriculture to declare null the restrictions

of 2020, 2021 and 2021 that only allow the expansion by 0.1 hectares, which in practice implies the prohibition of expanding the plantations.

However, with the publication this Wednesday in the DOE, the Ministry of Agriculture is limited to starting the process again with the same guidelines known before the Supreme Court's ruling and thus fully assuming the thesis of the Regulatory Council.

REACTIONS

The Junta de Extremadura announced today that it will appeal the decision published by the Ministry of Agriculture in the BOE that "retroactively limits" the rights of winegrowers, "since the applications submitted for new hectares of digging".

In the first place, he will present an appeal (administrative means) and, if it is unfavorable, he will resort to judicial means because, in his opinion, "this resolution constitutes a clear violation by establishing retroactive limitation of rights, without has justified ".

The general director of the PAC of Extremadura, Javier Gonzalo, considers that

"at least the applications presented before the entry into force of the resolution should be admitted

."

On the other hand, it considers that "the risk of market devaluation is not demonstrated in the record, and more so in the three-year period that such restriction operates."

The agrarian organization La Unión has assured that it is studying the filing of a complaint for prevarication against the Secretary General of Agriculture and Food for "ignoring" the ruling of the Supreme Court.

Also, remember that in 2019 around 6 million bottles of Almendralejo cava were sold, with a short-term forecast of reaching 10 million bottles.

When the sentence of January was known, the Extremadura agrarian organizations assured that "the Extremadura countryside cannot be a bargaining chip for the cessions with the nationalisms as has happened with the cava conflict, we will not allow it."

The Regulatory Council has justified for some years the limitations of plantation to the implementation of a strategic plan to adapt the supply to the demand in order not to devalue the quality and prices of the bottles packaged with the Denomination label. originally.

Catalonia has approximately 30,000 of the 37,955 hectares of crops with a denomination of origin

that exist in Spain, while in the Valencian Community (Requena area) the figure is approximately 4,000 and in Extremadura (Almendralejo), about 1,400.

Due to the pandemic, the DO applied a historical restriction in 2020, limiting production to 10,000 kgs.

of grapes per hectare (before it was 12,000).

This past March 3, the sector published the economic balance of last year, weighed down by the pandemic, which weighed down production by -13.62% (215 million bottles) although online sales soared by + 45%.

The foreign market gained weight again last year, accounting for 71% of total sales.

Germany continued to be the main consumer country, followed by the United Kingdom (with a growth of + 6.55%), Belgium, the United States and Japan.

Growth in Russia (+ 17.47%), Lithuania (+ 16.73%), Sweden (+ 12%), Finland (+ 11.83%) and the Netherlands (+ 9.93%) also stood out.

Cava is the Spanish DO that exports the most and gathers more than 38,000 hectares of vineyards and more than 6,800 winegrowers.

Its 370 associated wineries are present in more than 100 countries

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