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Wine bottles in Ireland are to be labelled with present indications of "alcohol-related hazards". A corresponding draft regulation, which is to regulate the labelling of alcoholic products at the national level, was approved by the European Commission without comments or objections after the end of the six-month review period.
According to this, labels of all alcoholic products must contain a warning informing about the dangers of alcohol consumption; a warning informing about the dangers of alcohol consumption for pregnant women; a warning informing about the link between alcohol and fatal cancers; the alcohol content of the product in grams; the number of calories contained in the product and a link to a health website with information about alcohol and its harm (for the draft see cover picture).
With the now approved regulation, the Irish government regulates the details of the "Public Health Alcohol Act" introduced in 2019, which provides for the obligation to inform consumers about health risks. According to the Dublin government, "The volume and patterns of alcohol consumption in Ireland represent a huge public health burden. Data shows that the Irish population is unaware of the health risks associated with alcohol, and the draft regulation presented here aims to ensure that Irish consumers are directly informed of these risks and assisted in making healthier choices about their alcohol consumption."
Representatives of the European wine industry, especially from the large producing countries such as France, Italy and Spain, are indignant that the EU Commission has approved the draft without objections and that wine would thus be put on an equal footing with cigarettes. They fear that this would endanger the harmonisation of EU legislation and jeopardise the free movement of goods in the internal market. Member States should not legislate on issues that have already been harmonised by EU law. Besides, new EU rules on the labelling of alcoholic beverages would come into force in December 2023 anyway.
Irish authorities point out that the implementation of the regulation, once finalised, would have a long lead time of three years and would provide businesses with options to minimise the impact on their processes. Ignacio Sánchez Recarte, secretary-general of the Committee of European Wine Industries (CEEV), on the other hand, urges Ireland to "reconsider these intentions, especially pending a proposal from the European Commission for harmonised legislation", adding that "once the European procedure is completed, Ireland will have to notify its draft to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) before adopting its new law."
(al / source: vitisphere; photo: Irish Health Service)