FRANCE – REFUND
July 1st, 2005
BY ALAN OSBORNFRANCE has been ordered to repay Euro 14.52 million to the European Commission following the discovery that the country had made "ineligible use of new planting rights" in order to claim European Union (EU) aid in the wine sector. Brussels said subsidies had been paid in respect of a gross area owned by wine producers and not that actually under vines. The payments were ostensibly made to assist in the restructuring and conversion of vineyards producing wines in surplus. Johann Reyniers, the Commission 's wine spokesman, said there was no ...
Full access to this article can be arranged with permission from the client that first ordered it. Please contact us to request access. Entries are uploaded to our archive at least one year after being published by a client – free access is restricted to International News Services journalists for background research only. The article date indicates when copy was filed to a client, not when posted to this archive. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.