Background information

The COVID-19 crisis affected negatively the wine sector in Romania. The pandemic led to a distortion of the wine market by triggering crises on the supply-demand ratio and generated uncontrolled evolution of input prices and labor costs required to carry out manual maintenance work on vineyards.

In this context, the Government issued the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 205/2020 aiming to support wine producers affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The objective of the aid scheme is to meet the liquidity needs of the affected winegrowers and to enable them to continue their activities and maintain their jobs during and after the pandemic.

Content of measure

The measure consist in a aid scheme for Romanian wine producers affected by the coronavirus pandemic with a total budget of €12.4 million. Direct subsidies will not exceed €100,000 per company operating in the primary agricultural sector and that the scheme will apply until 31 December 2020. The beneficiaries applying for aid must meet, at the date of submission of the aid application, the following eligibility criteria:

• to be registered in the APIA records in 2020, with a single surface payment request;
• to exploit vineyards registered in the Register of vineyards and to have submitted and registered harvest declarations related to the grape harvesting campaign for 2019, according to the legal provisions in force;
• not to exceed the total value of €100,000 / beneficiary
• not to be in difficulty, respectively reorganization, bankruptcy or liquidation in the records of the National Office of the Trade Register on December 31, 2019 or, in the case of the natural person, a final decision of the courts was not issued to establish bankruptcy until on December 31, 2019.

Use of measure

Over 1,000 producers were expected to benefit from the scheme. There is no official statistics so far about the final number of beneficiaries.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Sector specific set of companies	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government EU (Council, EC, EP)	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Unknown	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Only employers' organisations
• Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

The draft of the Emergency Ordinance was sent to the Social and Economic Council, which is a social dialogue body, formed by representatives of trade unions, employers organizations and civil society, which issued an opinion on the draft, in accordance with the legal requirements.

Views and reactions

No public positions or view has been expressed by social partners regarding the measure.

Sectors and occupations

This case is not occupation-specific.

Sources

• 27 November 2020: ORDONANȚĂ DE URGENȚĂ nr. 205 din 27 noiembrie 2020 privind aprobarea Schemei de ajutor de stat pentru susținerea activității producătorilor din sectorul vitivinicol în contextul crizei economice generate de pandemia de COVID-19 (legislatie.just.ro)