The Spanish wine sector has expressed its “total” rejection of the attacks that Spanish truck drivers suffered this Thursday in France by winegrowers and winemakers from that country, who were trying to prevent the passage of Spanish wine across the border.

This is “an attack on Spanish free trade and that also comes in a complicated situation for the entire primary sector as a whole,” said the president of the Spanish Wine Interprofessional (OIVE) Fernando Ezquerro, after the meeting. directive that this association held on Thursday in Toledo.

The event has had the participation of Agro-Food Cooperatives of Spain, the agricultural organizations Asaja, COAG and UPA, the Spanish Wine Federation (FEV) and the Spanish Wine Business Association (AEVE), which have also shown their “resounding condemnation to any act of violence against Spanish wine companies”, as reported by the OIVE.

The rejection of these attacks is “greater if possible”, the OIVE has emphasized, when they are carried out by other winegrowers, “who are absolutely aware” of the “difficult situation” of the market, in which “high production costs, rising prices of raw materials and the situation of uncertainty and instability”.

The OIVE and its organizations have thanked the “quick action” of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) of Spain itself.

Likewise, they have requested that “work continue to prevent these situations from reproducing and the necessary measures be adopted to avoid new attacks that unjustifiably attack companies in particular and the Spanish wine sector in general.”

Around 500 French winegrowers from the departments of Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales blocked the Le Perthus border crossing with Spain on Thursday morning to demand an end to imports of Spanish products.

The protesters, who burned tires at the motorway tollbooth in Le Boulou, proceeded to filter the vehicles entering from Spain and looted a truck with tomatoes, whose load they emptied on the asphalt.

A part of the protesters had begun their action in Narbonne, where the president of the Aude Winegrowers' Union, Frédéric Rouanet, announced that they were going to “stop Spanish imports”, which they accuse of causing the collapse of many farms in the south of France with prices much lower than theirs.

Their complaints are directed in particular against the bulk wine that arrives from Spain and which in most cases is bottled in France for marketing.

France is the main buyer of Spanish bulk wine and 32% of the total volume exported by Spain and 30% of the turnover from these shipments are directed there, according to data from the Spanish Observatory of the Wine Market (OEMV) on the twelve months between July 2022 and 2023.

In detail, French purchases of Spanish bulk wine fell by a slight 0.1% in volume year-on-year to July of this year, to 368.7 million liters, and increased by 6.2% in value, to 153.8 million euros, increasing its average price by 6%, to 42 cents per liter.

In the first seven months of this year, France has purchased almost 218 million liters of bulk wine worth more than 93.6 million euros.