The minister said that 60 million euros have already been spent on distillation, a number that he considered "brutal", and said that "support for new vineyards should have been stopped long ago".

António Filipe, from the Association of Port Wine Companies (AEVP), told the Lusa agency that it makes no sense to make new plantations to produce wine that is not sold later.

This official recalled that some wine-growing regions of the country, such as the Douro, "closed themselves off to these increases, they are not even using 1%".

The planting authorization regime provides that, annually and free of charge, authorizations for new plantations are made available, corresponding to 1% of the total area effectively planted with vineyards as of July 31 of the previous year.

"Another thing is the financial support for the restructuring of existing vineyards and there our position is clear. We need to continue to have this support to restructure vineyards. Not with the aim of producing more, it is mainly with the aim of updating production methods, implementing mechanization processes, irrigation, improving the resilience of grape varieties to climate change, all this within the same existing area, we are not talking about increasing the vineyard, but rather restructuring the existing one", he stressed.

And he defended that this restructuring is "absolutely crucial for the future of the Portuguese wine sector".

"The Douro was the only region that, in some way, safeguarded this increase in the vineyard area, something that the rest of the wine-growing country did not accommodate and has been increasing this area", said Rui Paredes, from the Douro Renewal Federation.

For this leader of an association representing production, the minister's position "makes perfect sense", considering that it is "a contradiction" to be financing the increase in the vineyard area, and then to see "asking for money to make a distillation, because there are excesses or because it is not sold".

"And I think that the country should, once and for all, consider whether it makes sense to continue increasing the vineyard area. The Douro has already taken the initiative to be only a marginal increase, that is, we are talking about 4.4 hectares, it has no great significance compared to the rest of the country", he pointed out.

In his opinion, it makes no sense to be financing the increase in production capacity and he agrees that the way forward is through modernization.

"Human and labor resources are a problem that we have on a daily basis and, if nothing is done, if we do not modernize, if we do not optimize some jobs, it will be very complicated in the future. More and more we have to prepare for a crisis in the issue of human resources", he stressed.

Still regarding the minister's interview, Rui Paredes said he agreed with the simplification of processes, namely the issue of the single application for winegrowers and farmers with smaller dimensions, considering that "this simplification makes perfect sense".

Read Also: Douro reduces maximum production allowed per hectare in the 2024 campaign (Portuguese version)

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