Latest news with #NewEuropean
New European
08-05-2025
- Politics
- New European
The problem with this Labour government is…
The Matts are joined by New European political editor James Ball to step back and reflect on why Keir Starmer's government is conspicuously failing to excite and unite a British public desperate for change after so many years of Tory rule. They have their theories. Is there an easy(-ish) answer? And who should they really be worried about if it's not Reform? In the second half, the Matts take a look at the new documentary into the life of Leni Riefenstahl, filmmaker to the Nazis, and ask what her post-war rehabilitation tells us about the intersection of culture and politics. EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Get The New European for just £1 for the first month. Head to
New European
01-04-2025
- New European
In vino veritas? Inside the fake Spanish wine scandal
Chopin originally denied the charges and fled to Morocco in 2023, but returned to France in January this year, where he and his wife, Karine, will go on trial in Reims on June 10. In a French court, Chopin will soon face the music. That's Didier Chopin, former owner of the eponymous champagne house and now a self-confessed fraudster responsible for almost 2m bottles of fake champagne. Between June 2022 and April 2023, Chopin produced as many as 1.8m bottles of fake champagne – around 8,000 bottles a day – at a winery in Billy-Sur-Aisne, partly by carbonating Spanish bulk wine. In May, his then-manager Ludivine Jeanmingin alerted colleagues to the scam, confronted Chopin – and was fired. But prior to her dismissal, Jeanmingin had gathered evidence in recordings and videos, and by making copies of trade and production documents. She even has a lab sample proving that Chopin's fizz was not champagne. Now involved in a legal battle to gain official whistleblower status, she has become the heroine of this one particular episode in a long-running saga involving wine that is not what is said on the label. 'I am relieved that Chopin has finally acknowledged that he committed mass fraud, but he had no choice, considering all the evidence against him,' Jeanmingin told the New European. Jeanmingin's meticulous work has helped to reveal how fraudster wine industry insiders operate, even among the most elevated names and regions. Whether it be Bordeaux, Chianti, or Champagne, wine producers in Europe are fiercely protective of their appellations. Yet the European wine industry has been rocked in recent years by several fraud scandals, all involving Spanish bulk wine being falsely labelled and sold as appellation or table wine. These could not have come at a worse time. Champagne and Bordeaux producers are facing the threat of what could amount to a US boycott of French wine, through the prospect of tariffs as high as 200%. Increasingly vulnerable to low yields resulting from uncertain weather and climate change, falling red wine consumption and exports, the wine industry is further threatened from fraudster wine trade insiders. Indeed, the New European has learned of a new wine fraud case involving several prestigious Bordeaux châteaux. Defrauded wine estates include Château du Tertre, a Grand Cru Classé estate in the Margaux appellation, two further Margaux estates, Château Mongravey, classed as Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, and Château Tayac and Château Haut Coteau located in Bordeaux's St Estèphe appellation. Fiona Brousseau, co-owner of the latter, said she became aware that something was wrong when a customer alerted her that her wine didn't taste as it should. 'The fraud ring used our name, taking advantage of our reputation, by making fake copies of our wine labels. We didn't have to remove wines from the market as our wine was not used, just our labels,' she said. Fraud cases have raised questions over the traceability and control of Spanish bulk wine in the EU single market; how it is transformed when moved from wineries to brokers, wine merchants, distributors, importers and retailers, before reaching the homes of wine drinkers. 'Rogue industry intermediaries are taking advantage of the large volumes of bulk wine that move across Bordeaux; even the big estates sell bulk. There is a lack of visibility in distribution, which is partly why we're now selling wine directly to clients,' Brousseau said. Speaking to the New European, a suspect in the fraud ring confirmed that he was under judicial investigation: 'I delivered wine to clients who did whatever they pleased with it. Problems arise when you have dishonest clients,' he said. The investigation, still in a pre-trial procedural stage, follows a police raid on June 27, 2022, involving around 100 officers in seven French departments including Gironde. It led to the arrest of 27 suspects. According to a French public prosecutor, the fraud is alleged to have involved 'hundreds of thousands of bottles of wine'. The suspected ringleaders are a wine distributor based in St Loubès and a wine trader who owns an estate in the Médoc, classified as 'Cru Bourgeois' in early 2025. Two alleged ringleaders and an accomplice were released two days after their arrest, on bail sums ranging from €20,000 to €50,000, and stand accused of money laundering through building work, and belonging to a fraud network that sold wine in France and further afield in Europe. French supermarket chain Grand Frais said that following the arrests of the suspects, it had removed wines falsely labelled as Bordeaux. In the fake champagne case, two big French distributors including Scapest, which acts on behalf of supermarket Leclerc, are suing Chopin for damages after removing fraudulent bottles from circulation in 2023. The demand for product delivered by any means necessary is said to stem from a shortage of grapes in the 2013 harvest. Dominiue Técher, a spokesperson for the agricultural trade union Confédération Paysanne, said: 'Everyone knows how it was, in 2013, 2014, running out of wine. People gave orders saying 'you get me some wine'. It's an open secret.' In another notorious recent case, Bordeaux's biggest wine fraud to date, wine broker Michel Gilin blamed the grape shortage for his part in a scam that saw the equivalent of 4.5m bottles worth of Spanish bulk wine imported on 130 trucks, then bottled and labelled with fake Vin de France, Margaux and St Émilion wine labels. Gilin was a former director of Cellier Vinicole du Blayais, the former subsidiary of the huge Tutiac wine cooperative in the Gironde. His partner in crime, Jean-Sebastien Laflèche, a wine merchant and logistics provider, falsified electronic transport documents online, seeming to justify the origin and nature of wine in the event of an inspection. In January 2023, Judge Marie-Elisabeth Boulnois sentenced Gilin to 20 months' imprisonment, but he did not go to jail – half was a suspended sentence, and the other half was served with an electronic tag. Gilin also received a €200,000 fine and a five-year ban from working in the wine business. Laflèche got a two-year term and a ban, but again escaped spending time in prison. Also fined was winemaker Fabien Figerou, owner of Château Bégadanet, a historic wine estate in the Médoc, and the winery Les Chais de Bégadanet. French customs officers said that most of the fraud ring's money was generated via Les Chais de Bégadanet. Nearly 205,000 fake bottles, filled at the winery between 2014 and 2016, generated €825,879 of the €1.24m estimated total profit. A Bordeaux commercial court officially closed the winery down in January 2025. But none of these frauds happen in isolation. Reports of documents being manipulated to inflate grape yields and production volumes to facilitate the illicit blending of cheap bulk wine with appellations are commonplace in Spain, Portugal and Italy. Castilla La Mancha, the world's single largest wine region, supplies about a third of the world's bulk wine, which is exported mainly to Germany, France, Italy and Portugal. That bulk wine is used entirely legally to make sparkling and still wine blends, as well as wine-based drinks. In the context of falling red wine consumption globally, several producers in southern France, hit by drought and subsequent low yields, and consequently in economic peril, have said they would have to close if they did not use Spanish bulk wine in blends. The pattern is repeated across the EU; according to a report by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), wine production in the bloc fell last year to 146.5m hectolitres, its lowest level since 2017. Some take action in ways that, while legal, are viewed as questionable by experts. Faced with four consecutive drought harvests, Cava producers including Germany's Henkell-Freixenet stand accused of undermining the traditional method of Cava production by resorting to the use of bulk wine in cheaper methods of making sparkling wines. Reflecting a shortage of supply, grape prices in Catalonia have jumped to as much as €1 per kilo. That is at least, in some cases, double the price of bulk wine per litre sold in Castilla La Mancha. Meanwhile, cheap Spanish bag-in-box wine sold as 'EU wine' is undermining sales of quality production in the historic Portuguese wine regions, including the Douro Valley, according to producers. Over the past decade, bag-in-box wines have become ubiquitous in Portuguese bars and restaurants, served as the house wine, partly due to the cost-of-living crisis and changing packaging trends. Portuguese wine company Terreiro says 80% of its wine is sourced from Spain. António Maçanita, a leading producer of fine, artisanal wines, says Portuguese growers and producers are losing out to an 'economy of poverty' imposed by industrialised producers hell-bent on maintaining low prices. The Portuguese government is now on the verge of adopting new rules obliging bars and restaurants to list the origin of wines. At the annual world bulk wine expo held in Amsterdam last November, traceability was the watchword on the lips of suppliers. Transparency around the adaptation of bulk wine, which is often traded between several companies before reaching consumers, is a cause for concern, with its impact on acidity and potential alcohol levels of wine. In a nonchalant tone, Emiliano Soto, winemaker at the Manjavacas Cooperative located in Cuenca, Spain spelled out the extent of the problem: 'They use Spanish bulk wine in France to freshen up tanks of wines from previous vintages. It's the same in Italy. Everybody does it.' The use of Spanish bulk wine in Italy is routinely compared with that of the olive oil trade, where Italian companies have bought millions of litres of olive oil and failed to state its Spanish origin. Meanwhile, bautizando vinos, as it's humorously known in Spain – the illegal christening of wines with water – is a cheaper way of cutting alcohol levels in light of the demand for low-alcohol wines. Two industry sources in Spain, including a wine broker, told the New European that when yields are low, Italian wine companies blend Spanish white wine made from Pardina with Pinot Grigio, thus increasing the supply of the latter – a hugely popular wine around the world for which price is a key factor for consumers. But Carlo Flamini, director of Italy's Osservatorio del Vino, dismissed any notion of fraudulent use of Spanish bulk wine in Italy: 'Italian companies buy Spanish bulk wine and then sell it on to other markets,' he insisted. Whatever the truth, there is widespread agreement that while the ability to secure supplies from across the EU is a boon for wine companies at the mercy of drought, frost, fires and flooding, European freedoms have also opened up the industry to abuse. Fraud, be it consumer fraud or the illegal blending of bulk wine with appellation wine, has led to wine consumers being hoodwinked over the origin of wine. The wine you buy may not come from the country that its bottle or packaging suggests. The illicit use of Spanish bulk wine and lack of control over wine movements in the EU single market is undermining the cultural identity of European wine regions that have shaped the world of wine through language, winemaking techniques, and appellations for centuries. In several European regions, wine growers are abandoning production, and thus Europe's winemaking heritage, in droves. Back in Champagne, Chopin's admission of guilt has raised Jeanmingin's hopes of winning her legal battle over unfair dismissal and of obtaining official whistleblower status at her appeal hearing at a court in Amiens on April 24. 'No one wanted to employ me, as they could not believe that champagne fraud of this magnitude was possible. Yet it is my gathering of evidence that has led to Chopin being finally brought to trial, so I deserve recognition as a whistleblower,' Jeanmingin said. 'I hope to celebrate with real champagne very soon.' This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe Barnaby Eales is a multilingual journalist based in Britain. Dominique Mesmin is an investigative journalist based in Paris
New European
13-03-2025
- Politics
- New European
Has Starmer become the PM we need?
The past two weeks have been good for Keir Starmer. As Tom Baldwin writes in this week's New European, he has fallen back on his core qualities; a kind of radical relentlessness. The Matts assess his performance and ask if Starmer is ready to throw off the Labour obsession with appeasing the so-called red wall and instead embrace Labour's natural audience: Us! In the first part, the Matts discuss the latest news from the ongoing Ukraine sell-out. Enjoy! EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Get The New European for just £1 for the first month. Head to The Matts speak with Sam Wetherell, author of the brilliant Liverpool And The Unmaking Of Britain. It's not only a fascinating dive into the history of Liverpool, a city whose rise and fall impacted the whole world, but it's also a prism through which we can try to understand our own complex times. How did one […] The Matts tackle questions from listeners including should X be banned in the UK? Should we withdraw the offer of a State Visit for Trump? Are we AI friendly? And why the hell are we insulting the dignity of the Two Matts podcast by not wearing suits? Enjoy!EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Get The New European for just […] The Matts are transfixed by Trump's address to Congress. Once they get over the sheer magnetism of his schtick, they unpack how it works and why the right is so good at messaging. In part two, they analyse what might be the greatest speech to date about the horrifying implications Trump holds for Europe. A […] The Matts are joined by Trump chronicler supreme, Michael Wolff, whose new book All Or Nothing is a riveting and revelatory telling of Trump's extraordinary journey back to the White House. What are the characteristics that turned a seemingly irredeemable position into a second term? What do his inner circle really think of him? Why does […] The Matts grapple with our former Prime Minister's latest outbursts, dig into a deep mailbag of Burnham questions and speculate wildly on the Oscars this evening. Enjoy!
New European
02-03-2025
- Politics
- New European
Q&A: Is Liz Truss Ok?
The Matts grapple with our former Prime Minister's latest outbursts, dig into a deep mailbag of Burnham questions and speculate wildly on the Oscars this evening. Enjoy! What is Trump's real objective? And what do European leaders do now, as the reality that the President of the United States is not simply indifferent to their fate, but actively hostile. Trump hasn't just abandoned Ukraine – he's actually switched sides and in siding with Russia over the carve up of its territory and […] Manchester mayor Andy Burnham joins the Matts ahead of this week's Convention of the North – the annual meeting of minds focussed on the ongoing revival of the UK's great northern regions and cities. Andy delves deep into the opportunities and challenges facing cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds – emerging from the threat of […] Should the Matts write the briefing notes for Keir Starmer's trip to see Trump? What would Mr Kelly do if a populist Government tried to muzzle The New European? And what should we make of Boris Johnson's silence on matters Ukraine these past few weeks? All these questions and more answered on today's Q&A. Enjoy! […] The Matts are joined by New European columnist Tanit Koch who tells them everything they need to know about the weekend's federal elections in Germany. What are the consequences of the far right AfD's growing support? What difference will a conservative Chancellor make on illegal immigration and the economy – the two burning issues at […] Keir Starmer has pledged British boots on the ground to keep whatever peace Trump and Putin carve up between them over Ukraine. The consequences are staggering and disturbing, as the Matts discover during the course of a tightly argued podcast. Meanwhile, JD Vance openly humiliates European leaders and sends the clearest signal yet that America […]
New European
01-03-2025
- New European
How Brexit damaged UK tourism
There are clouds on the horizon for Britain's tourist industry. The UK remains a hugely popular destination – the government-funded tourist association Visit Britain estimates 43.4 million foreign visits in 2025 – but arrivals are estimated to spend 9% less in real terms this year than they did in 2019. The long-term forecast doesn't look entirely promising either. Britain is slipping behind our neighbours. 'Looking forward, the UK is likely to lose competitive share both within Europe and globally,' VisitBritain said. Meanwhile, 'if inbound tourism to the UK was to grow at the same pace as forecasts are currently indicating for western Europe, the value of inbound spending would be worth an additional £4.4 billion per year by 2030 to the UK economy.' What is fuelling this fall? Factors being blamed include UK hotel prices rising faster than inflation and fears about the new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme that comes into force for foreign travellers from April this year. But of course, there's always Brexit. Before we left the EU, its citizens could travel here using only their identity cards. Many – especially children who used to come on school trips – don't have passports. In the week that Visit Britain's report came out, a letter to the New European arrived from Robert Sissons in Sandgate, Kent. It sums up some of the damage far more eloquently than I could, so I will reprint it here. He writes: 'I worked for 35 years with two of the UK's leading tour operators, and meanwhile studied to become a qualified Blue Badge tourist guide for London and south east England, my current profession. From the 1980s to the 2010s everything got easier: as more countries joined the EU, tedious frontier controls became unnecessary. 'I can recall waiting for about two hours with 50 frustrated tourists at a dusty crossing point on the Spanish/Portuguese border on a hot summer day in 1984 while our coach and paperwork were examined and the more adventurous members of the party queued to exchange their remaining pesetas for escudos. Twenty years later I drove over that border without stopping and with no need to exchange the euros in my wallet. If my employers ever needed me to travel to the EU at short notice, there was never any concern about getting a visa or about how many days I'd spent in the EU over the past six months. 'Before Brexit, large numbers of EU visitors came to the UK, many on day trips or weekend breaks. About 30% of my work as a tour guide was meeting groups of French and Belgian tourists at Dover, the Channel Tunnel terminal or Ashford International Station and taking them on tours of south east England. This work has completely disappeared. 'Although the requirement for passports for French school groups was lifted last year, the long delays at customs and immigration mean that day trips are no longer practical – and the international tracks through Ashford station are rusty and disused. The few French school groups I guided last year – all coming for short stays – all complained about long waits at Dover, and on one occasion their Polish coach driver was detained and interrogated for half an hour and told he would not be allowed to work in England! 'There were also numerous trips going the other way. Day trips from Ashford International to Paris, with a guided tour of the city and lunch in a typical bistro, were popular. Short breaks visiting world war I cemeteries and historic cities like Bruges or Arras were commonplace, particularly on Bank Holidays, in addition to the ubiquitous 'booze cruises'. 'Again, long delays at customs and immigration, and on the roads around Dover and Folkestone, have brought an end to this formerly lucrative work. One Kentish coach company I know has sold half their fleet since Brexit. 'Other than providing work for tour guides and coach drivers, tourists also visit gift shops, restaurants and cafes, and their entrance fees help towards the maintenance of historic buildings. Many of the little shops in Canterbury that formerly catered to overseas visitors have closed since 1989. 'Signing up to the single market and restoring some degree of freedom of movement would go a long way towards helping the tourist industry, though I fear many of my former customers now regard the UK as a country that hates all foreigners.' Yet another way in which Brexit has made Britain worse. One particular tourist, who has recently completed a trip to Washington DC, should take note.
