How we operate

To achieve its mission, FEVS first relies on its Board of Directors, made up of companies’ top managers who are very involved on international markets and who perfectly know their stakes and constraints. They define FEVS strategic orientations.

It also relies on a permanent team in charge of preparing the Board of Directors’ works and ensuring that the decisions made by the latter are implemented.

Beyond the Board decisions, FEVS developed network running particularly adapted to cover a scope of action as wide as the international.

They are a strong observation window on market, concerning both their trade situation and the appearance of new regulatory constraints. These companies are also particularly valuable to prepare FEVS orientations and actions, by checking the relevance of the latter.

FEVS members are periodically called to take part in working group on a given market or issue, in order to share the analysis of a situation with other companies within FEVS, before defining orientations and action proposals that shall be submitted to the Board of Directors.

FEVS has a strong presence with French public authorities.

The FEVS Chairman is regularly the spokesperson of exporting companies of the wine and spirit sector with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, with the Minister of Foreign Trade and with the Minister of food and agriculture. FEVS also has regular relations with the various minister’s private offices, the Prime Minister or at the Presidency of the Republic.

On a daily basis, this action is developed with the State services, in particular with:

• the Directorate General of the Treasury (DG Treasury) in charge of trade negotiations;
• the Directorate General of Economic and Environmental Performance of Companies (DGPE), of the Ministry of Agriculture, involved in the sector issues concerning related to wines and spirits;
• the Directorate of Globalisation, Development and Partnerships of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs which monitors, in particular, the economic advisors who are present in the 156 diplomatic representations of France abroad;
• the Directorate General of Customs and Indirect Duties (DGDDI), for everything that is related to the statistical follow-up of wine and spirit exports and to export formalities.

This action also necessarily spreads out at the European level. FEVS has a strong presence with the main directorates general of the European Commission – DG Trade and DG Agriculture – in charge of these issues, and also has relations with EU Delegations that are present in third countries.

To be fully efficient at the community level, FEVS is very involved in the European federation representing the sector: on the one hand, the “Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins” (CEEV), on the other hand, Spirits Europe.

Finally, FEVS maintains a large network of more informal relations with a set of European and international partners that share the same concerns and have the same objectives, mainly in Europe, North America, the Caribbean and Oceania.