The ‘Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins’ (CEEV), SpiritsEUROPE and Brewers of Europe announced on Tuesday 16 May that they had lodged a formal complaint asking the European Commission to open an infringement procedure against Ireland for violation of EU law and the EU single market. At issue are draft rules for the labelling of alcoholic beverages in Ireland, which include, among other things, the use of health warnings (see EUROPE 13105/16).
“The provisions included in the Irish labelling regulations are incompatible with current EU law and constitute an unjustified and disproportionate barrier to trade”, said Mauricio González-Gordon, President of the CEEV.
SpiritsEUROPE (https://aeur.eu/f/6w9 ) believes that the Bill, which requires additional Ireland-specific labelling information (textual health warnings on alcoholic beverages), “represents a disproportionate trade barrier to the free movement of goods”. The new rules would prevent traders from selling in Ireland alcoholic beverages legally sold in all other EU Member States, unless the bottles were relabelled with: - additional information (grams of alcohol, number of calories); - health warnings in the form of text and pictograms.
The CEEV supports the fight against alcohol abuse, but believes that this objective could be achieved by measures that are “more effective and less trade restrictive” and compatible with existing EU legislation.
In addition, the Commission is expected to present new harmonised labelling rules for alcoholic beverages soon. “In such a situation, it is common practice to suspend plans to derogate from national rules”, argues SpiritsEUROPE.
For the CEEV, the Irish rules constitute a “disproportionate and unjustified” trade barrier, contrary to Articles 34 and 36 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. Ireland’s labelling provisions do not distinguish between alcohol abuse and moderate wine consumption patterns, and therefore do not adequately inform consumers, the CEEV concluded. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)