By Martin Hellicar
UNRUFFLED by vine growers’ violent protests on Tuesday, the cabinet yesterday decided to postpone a final decision on the level of compensation to be offered for surplus grapes dumped in landfills.
“The cabinet dealt with the issue, but the final decisions will be taken and announced on Thursday,” Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said after yesterday morning’s cabinet session.
The cabinet is to meet again today to consider an offer from local wineries — communicated to Ministers yesterday — to take in excess grapes, albeit at a reduced price. Wineries have been refusing to take in more grapes, saying wine prices in the EU are so low that they could never hope to export more wine.
Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous yesterday said wineries had now reconsidered their stance. If accepted, the wineries’ offer would reduce the impact on state coffers of paying growers to dump their grapes.
But the growers yesterday made clear the offer from the wineries would only be acceptable if the state subsidised growers’ incomes to make up for the lower price the wineries were offering for their produce.
On Tuesday, about 200 vine growers from the Limassol and Paphos areas clashed with police outside the Presidential Palace in Nicosia as they protested to demand that compensation be upped from the current 90 per cent to 100 per cent.
Farmers were digging their heels in yesterday, insisting they would not accept a compromise 95 per cent compensation deal the cabinet was reportedly leaning towards.
“Our demand is that our producers be fully paid for the price of the grapes they have produced — whether they go to the wineries or to the landfills,” the head of the Pek Farmers’ union Michalis Litras said.
Meanwhile, vine growers in the Limassol district village of Pachna were preparing to surrender their electoral registration papers in protest at President Clerides’s refusal to meet with a 20-man protestors’ delegation on Tuesday. The President refused to receive more than 15 delegates, saying his audience room had but 15 chairs.
Pek leader Litras said Pachna residents planned to hand in their election papers tomorrow, “unless (today’s) cabinet decision changed their minds”.
Litras dismissed suggestions growers would agree to uproot vines producing unwanted varieties in exchange for greater compensation for this year’s surplus produce. He noted that existing varieties had been planted on the advice of government experts and said the state should foot the bill for replacing unpopular varieties.
“As far as rooting out is concerned, the vine growers are prepared to do so provided the government pays the cost of re-planting with designated varieties… we must stress that all the varieties of grapes considered unwanted by the wineries today were planted on the recommendation of the Ministry of Agriculture and with the participation of the wineries,” Litras said.
It was high time for a collective grape growing police re-thing, the Pek leader said. “It is time to sit down together to face the vines problem for the future so that we do not face the same problems every year.”
Somewhere between 2,500-6,000 tonnes of grapes are expected to end up underground this year.
Last year, over 11,000 tonnes of grapes were thrown away.
The grape dumping is seen as a necessary evil in government circles but has been heavily criticised by opposition parties.
Dimitris Christofias, leader of main opposition party Akel, yesterday urged the government not to be “miserly” and to cough up the full cost for dumped grapes. The Akel leader condemned Tuesday’s unruly demonstration as “neither pleasant nor acceptable”.
