The wine industry warned about “the amount of health nutters in the European Parliament”

ormer French MEP Irène Tolleret was invited to the annual conference of France’s co-operative winery organisation on June 27 on the island of Les Embiez, in Provence. She certainly didn’t mince her words when analysing the latest European elections. “There are plenty of rabble-rousers and health nutters in the European Parliament”, she claimed.

In her diatribe, Tolleret warned that people should be wary of German MEP Peter Liese, a member of the PPE and of the special committee for combatting cancer who produced a report stating that there was no safe level of alcohol consumption when it came to cancer. “He is against alcohol. He couldn’t care less about wine”, she said.

The MEP went on to point out that the next topics jeopardising the future of the wine industry were the attempts to ban any public support for wine promotion and mandatory statements about the quantity of alcohol on labels. She claimed that both battles could reap huge rewards for those waging them. “Consumption is declining structurally without having to intervene. In Ireland, after mandatory statements were introduced on the amount of alcohol in grams, those in favour of the measure declared victory. They said that the drop in consumption was a consequence of this obligation, when in reality it is structural”.

Tolleret warned co-operative winegrowers and the entire industry, “With the rabble-rousers in Parliament, we will see the return of the first glass being problematic. We will need to be relentless. We will need to fight like crazy on these issues. We will need the right to pleasure to be put on record at European level”.