Wine Law

11 • promote the use of ecological processes and cycles; • minimize or eliminate external interventions and viticultural practices that involve the use of synthetic chemicals; • use, preferably, ecological products and processes in the transformation and production processes, and try to avoid all techniques that have a considerable negative impact on the environment; and • exclude the use of genetically modified organisms and inputs from genetic engineering. It concludes by deciding that these general principles are the basis for defining the guidelines for organic production at the viticultural and wine-growing level, respecting current regulations. 3.3. New Action Plan for the future of organic production in the European Union We mentioned earlier that the European Commission adopted in 2004 its first European Action Plan on organic food and agriculture [(COM (2004) 415 final] in order to promote and strengthen this sector and, ten years later, most of the 21 planned actions had already been carried out.We have also seen that, after the year of adoption of this Plan, the Council revised the regulations on organic farming in 2007, and the Commission adopted a new Regulation. Communication COM (2014) 179 final, from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, on an Action Plan for the future of organic production in the European Union (24/03/2014) shows that in recent years, the EU organic market, driven by a regular increase in demand, has developed significantly: 19,700 million euros and a growth rate of 9% in 2011, according to the estimates of the Research Institute on Organic Agriculture (FiBL). At the same time, both the number of organic producers and the area dedicated to organic production have grown over the last decade at a rapid pace (about 500,000 each year). During the period 2000-2012, the total ecological area registered an average annual increase of 6.7%, reaching, according to estimates, 9.6 million hectares, which represents 5.4% of the total used agricultural area of the Union.