Press Release: Excise duties: Commission decides to take Sweden to court over tax discrimination against wine

The European Commission decided on 21 October 2004 to refer Sweden to the European Court of Justice over its tax discrimination against wine in comparison to beer. The Commission considered that the Swedish tax system afforded undue protection to beer, mainly produced domestically, in comparison to wine, which comes from other Member States. In the Commission's view, this discriminatory tax regime violates EC Treaty rules (Article 90) that forbid Member States to impose higher taxes on products from other Member States than on competing domestic products. The Court of Justice had ruled in several cases that beer and table wine are competing products.