Wine Law

6 European states but, obviously, national wine laws have a much longer history than the EU wine regulations, so that the EU regulations have been designed to accommodate existing regulations of several Member States. In particular, the existing regulations concerning French wine, with its detailed appellation laws, formed a basis, while also making room for the very different German wine classification system. In general, the EU wine regulations provide for minimum standards across the EU, while making it possible for individual Member States to enact stricter standards in certain areas in their national wine laws. Since their adoption, the basic provisions concerning the organisation of the market in wine were amended several times, and it was generally recognised that, because of their number, their complexity and their dispersal among various Official Journals, the relevant texts were difficult to use and thus lacking the clarity which should be an essential feature of all legislation 9 . There was significant political upheaval when, on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and the border between East and West Germanys opened for the first time in 28 years 10 . In 1993, the Single Market was completed with the four freedoms : movement of goods, services, people and money. The 1990s were also the decade of two treaties: the Maastricht Treaty on European Union in 1993 and the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999 11 . The urgency for consolidation arose at the end of that decade, together with the idea the operation and development of the common market in agricultural products should be accompanied by the establishment of a common agricultural policy to include in particular a common organisation of agricultural market. The common organisation of the market in wine was thus expected to comprise a price and intervention system, a system of trade with third countries, rules concerning production and for controlling 9 In the meantime, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined the European Union on 1 January 1973, raising the number of Member States to nine. In 1981, Greece became the 10 th member of the EU, and Spain and Portugal followed five years later. In 1986, the Single European Act was signed, i.e. the treaty providing the basis for a vast six-year programme aimed at sorting out the problems with the free flow of trade across EU borders and thus creates the “Single Market”. 10 This leads to the reunification of Germany in October 1990. Meanwhile, on 14 June 1985, the Schengen Agreement had been signed, leading most of the European countries towards the abolishment of their national borders, to build a Europe without borders known as “Schengen Area”. 11 In 1995, the EU had gained three more new members: Austria, Finland and Sweden.