Alcohol strategy attacked on two fronts

Plans by European Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou for a wide-ranging strategy to tackle alcohol abuse have come under fire from within the Commission and from the brewing industry.

A draft version of a planned strategy, to be adopted in October, has been sent to other Commission departments.

According to Rodolphe de Looz-Corswarem, secretary-general of the Brewers of Europe, the current version proposes raising excise duties on beer and spirits by up to 40% in seven EU countries with the lowest rates. But he said this would make little difference to the large disparities in rates among EU countries and would hurt consumers and Europe’s thousands of small brewers.

He also criticised a plan by Kyprianou for EU-wide warning labels, saying that there was "no demand" from consumers for such labels which would again raise costs for smaller brewers who would have to change their labels. De Looz-Corswarem said the industry was united with the Commission and member states as they had a "common enemy" in alcohol abuse. But he said the Commission would be wrong to pursue a "one size fits all approach" to tackling the problem which failed to take account of different cultural attitudes towards alcohol consumption.

He said that the Commission seemed to be paying too much attention to the "Nordic model" of tackling alcohol abuse, although those countries still had a problem of "binge drinking" despite high taxes and a distribution monopoly.

He added that the strategy should focus on those people who had a problem of alcohol abuse rather than drinkers as a whole.

The draft has also met opposition within the Commission. The secretariat-general has questioned whether the version respects the principle of subsidiarity by straying into policy areas which are the prime responsibility of member states. It also criticised an impact assessment which accompanies the strategy.

The Commission’s directorates-general for taxation and enterprise have also expressed concern about the latest text.

One Commission source said that the strategy may be dropped altogether if the concerns about subsidiarity and the need to fit in with the better regulation agenda were not addressed.

The Finnish presidency wants the strategy agreed by health ministers at their meeting on 30 November.

A spokesman for Kyprianou declined to comment on the content of the communication before it had been approved by the Commission. But he stressed that the commissioner would keep his "commitment to produce a communication on reducing alcohol-related harm" which had twice been requested by the Council of Ministers.

Plans by European Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou for a wide-ranging strategy to tackle alcohol abuse have come under fire from within the Commission and from the brewing industry.

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