Wine Origins Alliance Members Advocate for Elimination of Trade Barriers in Geneva

GENEVA – Earlier this month, Wine Origins Alliance (WOA) members held a fly-in in Geneva, Switzerland to share their mission and discuss issues impacting wine trade with high-level officials at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Throughout two days of activities from February 12-13, Alliance members from five countries and three continents met with WTO representatives to continue their work to reduce and eliminate irritants to trade in wine, including lack of effective protection of wine place names and tariffs levied on wine as part of unrelated trade disputes. Members of the Alliance delivered the voices of the micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) making up the vast majority of the wine industry to the global stage, and also discussed related matters such as intellectual property rights, agriculture and the environment, and how best for wine regions to engage with WTO to reduce barriers to wine trade.

“When it comes to global trade, so much more unites the wine industry than divides us,” said Charles Goemaere, Director General of the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne and co-chair and founding member of WOA. “We are grateful to those we met with for listening to our collective concerns and the perspectives of the micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises that make up the vast majority of our member organizations.”

Since its founding in 2005, the Alliance has served as a unified voice for the wine industry on trade matters. Together, WOA members represent more than 100,000 wineries and grape growers that have created more than 1.2 million jobs and more than $8 billion in global wine exports – the vast majority of which are MSMEs. WOA membership encompasses 36 organizations from 11 countries, spanning Asia, Europe, North America, South America and Oceania; its newest members Ontario, Canada, and Mendoza, Argentina, were welcomed to the Alliance this month.

On Thursday, WOA members held a series of meetings with officials including WTO Deputy Director General Jean-Marie Paugam; Ambassador Alfredo Suescum of Panama, Chair of the TRIPS Council Special Session; Ambassador Matthew Wilson of Barbados, Chair of the WTO Informal Working Group on MSMEs; Maria Cosme, Chair of the WTO Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures; and WTO Director of External Relations Bernard Kuiten. WOA shared the perspective of the MSMEs that make up the wine industry and the non-tariff measures that pose an outsized impact on them, such as labeling requirements and the lack of effective protection for wine place names. In turn, WTO officials provided insights on the current state of global trade and how best the wine industry can engage at the international level.

On Friday, representatives from the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade Committee, including Chair Beatriz Stevens and Counsellor Mateo Ferrero, held a working session for WOA members to better understand WTO trade enforcement mechanisms, the work of the TBT committee, and how individual wine regions or wineries can stay informed of proposed changes to wine trade globally. WOA members also had the chance to hold an informal discussion with trade officials from the European Union and United States delegations to WTO.

“We value our productive collaboration with the WTO, and equally the daily work carried out by the diplomatic missions of the countries where our regions are based,” said Jacques-Olivier Pesme, Executive Director of the Wine Origins Alliance. “The better they understand the concerns of the wine industry, the better equipped they are to help us cut through the barriers. We will keep speaking with WTO representatives and partners on the global stage, and we are very confident that this work, done consistently and collectively, will deliver real results for wine producers and traders worldwide.”

Last week, the Wine Origins Alliance also released the results of a new global survey on the impact of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on the global wine industry and what can be done to combat them. More than 3,500 trade measures impacting the wine industry are in place around the world today, with costs that run into the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars. The survey found collective agreement from wine regions on burdensome NTMs – 91% of respondents report labeling requirements posing a great burden across geographies, and 72% of respondents listed the lack of effective name protection for wine place names as another barrier. Respondents also reported impacts from current trade uncertainty that ranged from double-digit export declines to total market loss. 

For more information about the Wine Origins Alliance, visit www.origins.wine or watch our “Location Matters” video here.