It's been a good six months since a new wine law was passed in Germany.

After years of unsuccessful struggle, the representatives of the winegrowers agreed with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture on a new version and thus finally implemented the EU requirements for a new regulation from 2009.

Last autumn, the Bundestag and Bundesrat approved.

Bernd Freytag

Business correspondent Rhein-Neckar-Saar based in Mainz.

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However, the new regulation did not bring about the hoped-for pacification of the wine industry.

On the contrary: The law has been passed, but the winemakers are arguing like tinkers.

The German Winegrowing Association (DWV), the highest professional organization, is faced with a pile of broken glass.

The cooperatives feel ripped off and have therefore left.

The Association of German Prädikatsweingüter (VDP) worries about its large plants and threatens to "disengage from the process".

The question of the quality criteria according to which the newly founded “protection associations” of winegrowers are to ensure that the origin profile hoped for by everyone becomes clear in their region harbors considerable potential for controversy.

Winegrowers' cooperatives do not feel noticed

The high point of the dispute so far: At the end of June, the German Raiffeisen Association (DRV) - the central organization of the cooperatives - announced that it was leaving the German Viticulture Association. In the orientation of the winegrowing association, the cooperative positions have recently played almost no role, says DRV managing director Henning Ehlers of the FAZ. The cooperatives have often been overruled: "We have to accept democratic processes". The winegrowing association is registered by politicians as the mouthpiece of the entire industry. But if the position of the almost 150 winegrowers' cooperatives, which after all produced a third of German wine and are the most important supplier to the trade, is no longer perceived, then this is no longer acceptable.

A few days after the cooperative association, the Franconian winegrowing association also sent its notice of termination. The Franconians also feel they are no longer represented by the Viticulture Association, albeit for different reasons. Above all, they are bothered by the planned reallocation of funding: the money from the EU support program - two million euros - is to be used for wine advertising in the future, according to the will of the federal government, in order to stimulate weak exports. Sounds good, but it is not acceptable for the Swiss franc, after all, the EU money could have been used for investment subsidies and restructuring - that would have benefited the winemakers directly. "We are now lacking export subsidies in the region," said Hermann Schmitt, managing director of the Franconian winegrowing association of the FAZ. He also criticizesthat the German Winegrowing Association had not succeeded in preventing the reallocation of structural aid for export advertising despite resolutions to the contrary by the board of directors. Export subsidies are already very high, but exports are still falling. “We're talking about profiling the origins and promoting Riesling. That doesn't go together. "