In brief
- Three operations can be paid for out of national money. The distillation of wine left unsold, the cutting of grapes before they ripen and the definitive removal of the vine from the ground. None of them starts on its own: the state has to ask, and the European Commission has to approve.
- The ceilings are not the same. For distillation and for green harvesting, the compensation stops at half the value lost, on top of which an incentive of no more than 20% may be added. For grubbing up, the compensation can cover in full the loss of revenue of a single year, and the 20% incentive is absent.
- Grubbing up is paid once and shows for ten years. Only vineyards harvested at least once in the ongoing marketing year and in the two previous ones are eligible, planted in their entirety with authorisation, and the parcel taken out stays in the vineyard register for at least ten marketing years.
Published: Official Journal of the European Union, L series, 2026/2093 of 16 September 2026
In force from: 17 September 2026, the day following publication, under Article 8
The European Commission has written the conditions under which a member state may pay out of its own pocket for the distillation of unsold wine, the cutting of grapes before ripening and the removal of the vine from the ground. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/2093, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 16 September 2026, applies from the following day in every member state, with no Romanian law to transpose it. For a winegrower in Dealu Mare, in Cotnari or in Recaș, the text brings no money, it opens a door: if the Ministry of Agriculture asks and Brussels approves, the three operations can be paid per hectare or per hectolitre. The rules on quality and on the recognition of producers stay those of national law, as can be seen from the orders on geographical indications and producer groups.
A delegated regulation is an act the Commission writes on its own, but only where the European Parliament and the Council have allowed it to. The empowerment here comes from Article 216(4), Article 223 and Article 227 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013, the act that organises the European agricultural markets. The door had been widened seven months earlier: Regulation (EU) 2026/471 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 February 2026 enlarged the scope of Article 216, which until then covered distillation alone, so as to take in green harvesting and voluntary grubbing up as well. The Commission was given the task of filling the gap with criteria, and the result is the act of 16 September 2026.
The practical consequence of the legal form chosen is simple. No government decision is awaited to transpose the text and no order to translate it into administrative language. The regulation is binding in its entirety and applies directly, from 17 September 2026, in all member states. What is awaited, instead, is the political decision in Bucharest and the figures that only the national authority can set.
The second thing that is easily misread is the phrase „national payments”. The money does not come from the European Union. It is national public money, that is from the state budget, and the regulation allocates not a single euro. Its role is to say how far a state may go in helping its winegrowers without that help distorting competition with producers in other states. That is why everything is built as a ceiling rather than as a sum: „shall not be higher than”, „no more than 50 %”, „no more than 20 %”.
What it changes in practice
The act defines five terms and builds three different mechanisms on them. Distillation means the disposal of wine by complete distillation into raw alcohol with an alcoholic strength of at least 92 % by volume. Grubbing up means the complete uprooting and removal of all vine stocks of an area included in the register referred to in Article 145 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013. The category of a wine is one of three: protected by a designation of origin, protected by a geographical indication, or without geographical indication. The colour is red, rosé or white. On these two criteria, category and colour, the state can cut the measure narrowly, at regional level, instead of applying it across the whole country.
Distillation and green harvesting answer a crisis of the moment. To be able to pay for them, the state has to demonstrate at least one of three situations: a substantial increase in recent wine stocks compared with the average of the previous five marketing years, a substantial decrease in the average producer price over the last six months compared with the average of those same five years, or a substantial decrease in cumulated sales in the ongoing year, provided the decrease does not come from less having been produced. Each comparison may also be made with the highest and the lowest value of the five years left out, which removes the exceptional year and the catastrophic year from the calculation.
Grubbing up answers a different kind of problem, an old imbalance between how much is produced and how much is sold, and the criteria match it. The state demonstrates one of four situations: estimated ending stocks over the last five years rise compared with the average of the last ten and rise significantly faster than average production over the same reference period, annual production is substantially above sales in at least three of the last five years, one of the three circumstances listed for distillation has recurred in at least three of the last five years, or average profitability per hectare has fallen sharply over the last ten years. On top of that, the measure is open only to states that keep the vineyard register. Romania keeps one, in the form of the Vineyard Register administered by the National Office for Vine and Wine Products.
Who can collect the money differs from one operation to another:
- Green harvesting and grubbing up. Only winegrowers whose holdings include exclusively areas planted with a planting authorisation, under Union and national law. A single parcel without authorisation takes the whole holding out of the scheme, not just that parcel.
- Distillation. Natural or legal persons producing or marketing wine, producer organisations and their associations, associations of two or more producers, and distillers of grapevine products. Where the beneficiary is not a wine producer, the member state has to ensure that the economic benefit reaches the producers.
- The wine sent for distillation. It has to originate in the Union, meet the requirements for marketing and, where relevant, the product specification of the designation of origin or of the geographical indication.
The ceilings are built the same way in the first two cases and differently in the third. For green harvesting, the maximum payment per hectare adds up the direct cost of removing or destroying the immature bunches, set by the state on the basis of representative standard costs, a compensation of no more than 50 % of the average value of the grapes produced in the same area over the previous three marketing years, from which the average cost of harvesting is subtracted, and an incentive of no more than 20 % of the sum of the first two. For distillation, the maximum payment per hectolitre adds up the cost of the operation, a compensation of no more than 50 % of the average market price of the last six months and the same incentive of no more than 20 %. In other words, in both cases the final ceiling is the sum of the first two components multiplied by 1.2.
For grubbing up, the structure breaks. The maximum payment per hectare adds up the direct cost of the operation and a compensation of no more than 100 % of the loss of revenue of one year, set at the level of the annual loss of revenue fixed by the state for the purposes of the CAP Strategic Plan. There is no incentive. The only irreversible operation of the three is also the only one that gets no premium over cost and compensation, and the compensation covers a single year, even though a vineyard taken out never produces again.
Grubbing up also carries conditions the other two measures do not have. Only vineyards harvested at least once in the ongoing marketing year and in the two previous ones are eligible, with the harvest declaration notified to the competent authority, which rules out vineyards already abandoned. Excluded are vineyards that went through a restructuring and conversion operation supported under Article 58(1), first subparagraph, point (a), of Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 during the previous five financial years. And the information on the parcel grubbed up, including the year and the identity of the beneficiary, stays in the vineyard register for at least ten marketing years after the grubbing up.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until Regulation (EU) 2026/471 of 24 February 2026, Article 216 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 covered a single crisis lever, distillation. A state that wanted to stop production before the harvest or to reduce the planted area permanently had no way of paying for that as crisis aid approved by the Commission. The enlargement of February 2026 added the other two operations, and the act of 16 September 2026 gives them content.
The second change is that the existence of a crisis can no longer be argued freely. The regulation writes out the list of market circumstances that count, the comparison periods and the possibility of leaving out the extreme values. A state asking for approval has to bring data, not descriptions, and the Commission has a common grid on which to measure them.
The third change concerns repetition. Article 5 ties the measures of the moment to the permanent measure: a state that has paid for distillation or green harvesting in at least three of the last five marketing years, in the same area and for the same wines, gets approval for one more year only if it makes parallel use of national payments for grubbing up or includes permanent grubbing up in the CAP Strategic Plan, for at least two years, and if it lays down in that plan the specific agronomic and viticultural conditions for restructuring and conversion. The idea is written out plainly in the preamble: distillation must not become a periodic market outlet for a region that consistently produces more than it sells.
Finally, what the state owes after spending has changed too. By 30 September each year, states with an approved request report to the Commission, for the previous marketing year, the quantities of wine withdrawn through distillation and the volumes of alcohol obtained, the areas under green harvesting and the areas grubbed up, all per category and colour of wine, together with the amounts paid. The notifications are made in the form provided for by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/1183 of 20 April 2017.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The sector has three levers instead of one, and they cover different situations: the surplus of today, the production to come and the area that no longer has a market.
- The ceilings are identical across the Union, so a Romanian winegrower is not competing with one from a state that could pay three times as much for the same operation.
- The measure can be cut regionally and by category and colour of wine, so a crisis of red wine without geographical indication in a single wine region does not force a national scheme.
- The text applies directly from 17 September 2026, without waiting for a law or a government decision to transpose it.
- The condition in Article 5 prevents distillation from turning into a predictable annual income for a structurally oversupplied region.
- The grubbed up parcel stays ten years in the vineyard register, with the year of grubbing up and the beneficiary, so the public money leaves a verifiable trace.
- For grubbing up, the compensation can reach 100 % of the loss of revenue of one year, not half as with the other two measures.
What remains a problem
- The regulation brings not a single European euro. The payment comes from the national budget, so it depends on a budgetary decision that has nothing to do with this act.
- No concrete amount can be found in the regulation: the standard costs, the average prices, the yields and the annual loss of revenue are set by the member state.
- The compensation for grubbing up covers the loss of a single year, although the area never produces again. The irreversible is paid for as a bad year.
- The incentive of up to 20 % exists for distillation and for green harvesting, but not for grubbing up, that is exactly where the decision is hardest to take.
- A single parcel planted without authorisation takes the whole holding out of the scheme, under both measures reserved for winegrowers, with no possibility of excluding only the parcel at fault.
- The 30 September deadline weighs on the member state, yet the act gives the Commission no deadline within which to answer the request for approval.
- The phrase „marketing year” appears 25 times and almost every reference period hangs on it, but it is not among the five terms defined in Article 2.
Practical advice
- Check the authorisation status of the whole holding, not only of the parcel for which you would claim support. The condition in Article 3(3) and in Article 4(3) refers to the holding in its entirety.
- Put the harvest declarations in order for the ongoing marketing year and for the two previous ones. Without a declaration notified to the competent authority, the vineyard does not qualify for grubbing up, however real the harvest was.
- If you restructured or converted the vineyard with support from the CAP Strategic Plan, count the five financial years from that operation. Until they have passed, that parcel cannot be grubbed up with a national payment.
- Before asking for grubbing up, compare the compensation, which covers a single year of revenue, with the revenue the vineyard would bring in the years ahead. The decision cannot be reversed, and the act provides for no later payment.
- If you are a distiller or a trader rather than a wine producer, prepare for the mechanism by which the state checks that the economic benefit is passed on to producers. It is an express obligation of the state, so it will become a condition in the national paperwork.
- Follow the announcements of the Ministry of Agriculture on the request for approval sent to the Commission. That is where the geographical scope, the categories and colours of wine targeted, the priority criteria, the duration of the measure and the ceiling per hectare or per hectolitre will show up.
Frequently asked questions
Can I file an application for this money tomorrow?
Does the money come from the European Union?
I have a piece of vineyard planted without authorisation. Do I lose everything?
How much can be paid per hectare for green harvesting?
What exactly does the distillation of wine mean?
I replanted the vineyard with European support three years ago. Can I claim the grubbing up payment?
What happens to the land once I take the vineyard out?
Is a law or a government decision needed for the regulation to apply?
Why can Romania use the grubbing up measure?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article 3(4), point (b), the place where the cost of harvesting is subtracted. The text speaks of a compensation amount of no more than 50 % of the average value of the grapes produced in the same area over the previous three marketing years, minus the average cost of harvesting in the same area. There is no way of establishing whether the subtraction happens before or after the 50 %. The difference between the two readings is exactly half the average cost of harvesting per hectare, and after the incentive of no more than 20 % is applied it reaches six tenths of that cost. Point (b) of paragraph (5), for distillation, carries no similar subtraction, so it cannot be used to settle the meaning.
- Article 5, the reference to three years of application in accordance with Article 3. The condition applies to states that have paid for distillation or green harvesting in at least three of the five previous marketing years „in accordance with Article 3”, that is under an article which has existed only since 17 September 2026. A state that paid crisis distillation in earlier years, approved on the basis of Article 216 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 as it then stood, can read the text two ways: either those years do not count and the condition stays without effect until around marketing year 2029, or they do count, and the state has to commit immediately to two years of grubbing up. Whether distillation can still be approved next year depends on the answer.
- Article 6 against Article 3(2) and Article 4(2). The request for approval has to contain the relevant information demonstrating the occurrence of the market circumstances referred to in Article 3(2), points (a), (b) and (c), and in Article 4(2), points (a), (b), (c) and (d), in the plural and with every point listed. The substantive articles, however, require one or more of the circumstances to be demonstrated for distillation and a single one for grubbing up. A state filing the dossier cannot know whether it has to prove all the circumstances or only the one it relies on, and for grubbing up the two texts ask for things that exclude each other.
Editorial analysis
The regulation is well built where it separates the three operations and weak precisely where it treats them alike. Distillation and green harvesting are gestures of one year: the wine leaves the market, the grapes never become wine, and the following year the vineyard produces again. Grubbing up takes the stocks out of the ground and closes the subject. Even so, the only irreversible measure is also the only one without an incentive. For the other two, the final ceiling is the sum of costs and compensation multiplied by 1.2, so Brussels accepts a premium of up to a fifth for a gesture that can be repeated. For grubbing up, the ceiling stays cost plus compensation, and the compensation is no more than the loss of revenue of one year. A vineyard that would have produced for another twenty years is paid at the level of a single year of lost revenue, while its trace stays in the vineyard register for ten marketing years. The longest period in the whole act concerns the man who no longer has a vineyard.
The second observation comes from combining two paragraphs of Article 4. Paragraph (5) excludes from grubbing up the vineyards restructured with European support in the previous five financial years, and paragraph (4) requires the vineyard to have been harvested in the last three years. Together they draw a narrow window and, for some winegrowers, a blockage of years: whoever replanted with money from the CAP Strategic Plan in 2024 cannot claim the grubbing up payment before financial year 2029, however badly the market goes in the meantime. The rule is logical, since it would be absurd to pay first for the replanting and then for the removal of the same vineyard, but the effect is that exactly the recently modernised vineyards, that is the most indebted ones, are the only ones with no way out.
The third observation concerns the asymmetry of the deadlines. The state is given a precise calendar date, 30 September, for the annual report to the Commission, and the winegrower is asked for harvest declarations notified in time and authorisations in order for every hectare of the holding. The Commission, by contrast, takes on no deadline within which to answer the request for approval under Article 6, although that answer decides whether a crisis measure still makes sense before the end of the marketing year in which the crisis occurs. Crisis aid approved after the crisis has passed is aid for the statistics. It is worth adding that the phrase „marketing year”, which carries almost every reference period in the act, appears 25 times, yet is not among the five terms defined in Article 2, alongside distillation, green harvesting, grubbing up, category and colour.
What should be changed
- Rewriting point (b) of Article 3(4), with a bracket showing the order of operations. A wording such as 50 % of the difference between the average value of the grapes and the average cost of harvesting would close the subject and make the ceiling calculable in the same way in every member state.
- An incentive for grubbing up as well, or a compensation covering more than one year. As long as the irreversible measure is the worst paid of the three, the rational winegrower chooses distillation every year, which is exactly what Article 5 is meant to prevent.
- A deadline for the Commission to answer the request for approval. Even sixty days would turn a crisis measure into an instrument usable in the year the crisis happens.
- Defining the marketing year in Article 2. The term appears 25 times and decides every reference period. A definition of its own or an express cross reference would spare national authorities an interpretation they have no reason to make differently.
- The possibility of excluding only the unauthorised parcel, not the whole holding. The present penalty is proportionate to the intention of the policy but not to the act: a winegrower with thirty hectares in order and a quarter of a hectare planted without authorisation loses access to both measures.
- Publication by the Ministry of Agriculture of the representative standard costs and of the annual loss of revenue, before the request goes to the Commission. These are the only figures that turn the ceilings in the regulation into real amounts per hectare and per hectolitre, and the winegrower has no other way of finding them out.
Original text of the legal act
The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.
The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania
Official Journal of the European Union, L series, 2026/2093 of 16 September 2026 7 pages PDF, 510 KB
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.