EU: Wine trade deal with Australia extended

By Keith Nuthall | 24 October 2008

The European Commission has expanded the EU's wine agreement with Australia to protect Bulgarian and Romanian producers.

The two countries were excluded from the original agreement because they only joined the EU in January 2007, after negotiations had begun.

Now, it has been redrafted so Australia gives protection to Bulgarian and Romanian wine geographical indications within its healthy domestic wine market.

As part of the deal, a handful of Australian geographical indications have also been added to the revised agreement, which is expected to be swiftly rubber-stamped by the EU Council of Ministers.

Both Bulgaria and Romania have solid wine-making sectors. For Bulgaria, Australia will now recognise 51 traditional wine growing areas, preventing producers from outside these regions from using these names on bottles.

For Romania, 32 wine-producing regions and 30 sub-regions will receive protection.

Sectors: Wine