£1.5bn of taxpayers' money to be spent tearing up vineyards

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The desperate move is aimed at helping European producers compete with New World rivals.

Sales have collapsed, leaving huge amounts of unwanted wine to be turned into disinfectant and industrial alcohol.

Now the European Commission wants instead to pay farmers to uproot their vines.

The proposals involve "grubbing up" almost 500,000 acres of land - 10 per cent of the total.

Marianne Fischer Boel, the EU's agriculture commissioner, said: "We currently waste too much money - over one third of our budget - getting rid of surplus wine instead of improving our competitiveness and promoting our wines."

The Commission's measures include banning the use of sugar and alcohol to enrich wine and boosting spending on better marketing and simplified labelling of bottles.

Some 300million litres of French and Italian wine were turned into ethanol last year at a cost of £350million.

Neil Parish, Tory agriculture spokesman in the European Parliament, said: "Europe needs to produce less but higher quality wine."