E-Malt.com News article: EU: European Beer Consumers Union urges authorities to treat beer more respectfully

The recently published European Beer Consumers Union (EBCU) Manifesto calls on the EU to protect Europe's brewing heritage and support its well-run pubs and bars.

“Beer is as much an agricultural product as wine, but is treated as an industrial product by the European Union. As a result brewers and beer drinkers are perceived to get unequal treatment in many member states of the European Union. This must change,” the EBCU Manifesto 2009 – 2014 claims.

According to the Beer Consumers Union, very large sums are devoted to support the wine industry. Hop growers, barley growers, maltsters and brewers should be able to receive similar support via a similar programme to market and promote beer, the natural and national drink of many member states in the EU.

All official Commission functions and Parliamentary occasions should serve beer form the relevant breweries alongside other drinks such as wine, EBCU insists.

In order to preserve and promote a sensible approach to the consumption of beer across Europe, EBCU has identified several key issues, such as:

• Encouraging the consumption of alcohol within pubs and bars where price, peer pressure and supervision by trained staff reduces the risk of alcohol misuse;

• Allowing member states to introduce lower VAT on meals sold in pubs and bars, as well as lower VAT rates on beer sold and consumed in pubs and bars;

• Retaining the Small Breweries Relief scheme which allows member states to reduce the beer excise duty charge to small brewers by up to 50%. Currently 18 EU states have a system of reduced beer excise duty for small brewers allowing them to compete with large multinational brewers;

• Taking action to compel high beer excise duty member states to reduce their duty rates to prevent the distortion of cross border trade;

• Allowing member states the option of charging a lower rate of beer excise duty on draught beer sold and consumed within licensed premises;

• Providing the malting barley and hop growers with the same level of financial support received by the wine vineyards.

Besides, the EBCU urges the EU authorities to remove the exemption that allows alcoholic drinks producers to avoid listing ingredients. The EU should legislate so that the actual place of brewing is stated on beer labels and not just the beer brand name so that consumers could choose a genuine locally or regionally produced beer.

Also, the EU should provide financial assistance to small and medium sized brewers to enable them to become more energy efficient.

The European Union should act against those state alcohol monopolies that restrict beer consumers freedom of choice, the EBCU states.

The European Beer Consumers Union is a federation of 13 national beer consumer organisations across Europe, founded in 1990 with a combined membership of over 120,000 members which represent the interests and views of beer consumers across Europe.


08 May, 2009