Cider is a popular alcoholic beverage throughout the EU, particularly in France and Spain, but despite this, there is no formal definition of the drink. The alcohol content can vary from single-digit to nearly 13 percent, and the fruit content also differs.
The EU Commission now wants to introduce common marketing standards, and in the draft proposal presented in December, a minimum juice content of apple or pear of 50 percent is proposed.
This would cause problems for the industrial cider industry, which usually only uses 15 percent juice, writes the news site Euractiv.
At a council meeting on Monday, Wolfgang Burtscher, the Commission's Director-General for Agriculture, warned that the proposal could hinder growth among Nordic producers. Sweden exports 75 percent of its annual cider production – 100 million liters – which accounts for a third of all EU cider exports, and Denmark's exports have also increased in recent years.
A way out could be a distinction between cider and "traditional cider" with a higher juice content.
