Wine Law

THE EVOLUTION OF ROMANIA’S VINE AND WINE LAW 471 III. THE NORMATIVE FRAMEWORK APPLICABLE TO VITICULTURE III.1. European Union Legislation On 1 January 2007, Romania became a European Union Member State. Accordingly, the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (collectively referred to as “the Treaties”) have established that the EU has the competence to define and implement a common policy in the field of agriculture and fisheries, normative acts (Regulations) adopted at EU level are directly applicable in Romania as well. Therefore, a common European legislation governs all sectors of agriculture of all Member States in the areas under the Union’s competence. Thus, this study will briefly mention these legal norms of European origin, detailing, where appropriate, the national normative provisions specific to the wine sector. The European Union’s internal market includes “agriculture, fisheries and trade in agricultural products”, which mean, according to article 38 TFEU, “the products of the soil, of stockfarming and of fisheries and products of first- stage processing directly related to these products”. Annex 1 of TFEU mentions both plants and fruits, as well as must and wine from fresh grapes. Furthermore, EU Member States have agreed to have a Common Agricultural Policy, the objectives and implementation of which are set out in articles 39 through 44 TFEU. In article 40(1), specifically, it is mentioned that to achieve the objectives, a common organisation of agricultural markets was established in one of the following forms: “(a) common rules on competition; (b) compulsory coordination of the various national market organisations; (c) a European market organisation”. In this general framework established by the TFEU, are worth mentioning Regulation (EU) 2013/1308 establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural products and Regulation (EU) 2013/1306 on the financing, management and monitoring of the common agricultural policy ( Basic Regulations ). These were followed by several other EU Regulations ( Delegated or Implementing Regulations ), applicable in the wine sector, such as:  Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/273 as regards the scheme of authorisations for vine plantings, the vineyard register, accompanying documents and certification, the inward and outward register, compulsory declarations, notifications and publication of notified information;