EU ruling against minimum tobacco prices - any alcohol equivalent?

hatrickpatrick

So as we've probably all heard by now, the cabinet is going to impose minimum alcohol prices in Ireland, with minimum pricing per gram of alcohol.
In the past, the EU has ruled against such measures targeting tobacco.

http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2010/0304/128369-cigarettes/

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that Irish legislation fixing a minimum retail price for cigarettes infringes EU law.
The legislation here breaches Directive 95/59 which has rules on excise duty affecting the consumption of tobacco products.
The court says imposing a minimum price on cigarettes can undermine competition by preventing some manufacturers taking advantage of lower cost manufacturing prices, so as to offer more attractive retail selling prices.
The court says that while the directive [95/59] ensures health protection, it does not prevent member states from combating smoking.

The directive in question:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=31995L0059&model=guichett

(It's very big so I won't quote it)

My question is, does anyone know if any similar EU law exists which would prohibit the planned minimum alcohol pricing? One would imagine that any EU law relating to cigarettes would be mirrored so a certain degree by a similar law relating to alcohol, given that alcohol and tobacco are regarded as "the old reliables" when it comes to excise taxes and so on.

I'm no legal expert and I make no claim to be able to decipher most of the jargon one finds in such directives, I'm just wondering does anyone happen to know about this? Is there the potential for this to be combatted at EU level? We all know that in Ireland, the cabinet ultimately controls the Dail so once the cabinet makes a decision that's usually the end of it. With this in mind, it would appear that an EU level challenge might be the only spanner which could potentially be thrown into the works in this case.

Any opinions?

Cody Pomeray

well we have to wait for the final decision on the scottish minimum pricing law.

the preliminary decision was that minimum pricing would not be accepted by the commission.

the french aren't happy at all with it [the scottish law].

SimonLynch

If I remember right Pall Mall reduced their price below the minimum price at one stage with no reaction, granted there was much graver stuff going on at the time so it might have gone under the radar. Subsequent budgets took them back over the minimum price anyway.

johnnyskeleton

I would imagine that minimum pricing for alcohol could be considered a greater breach of eu law since we both make it here and import from other member states, unlike tobacco which afaik is mostly imported.

Supposing a polish company can make beer for 5c a can while an Irish company can make it for 20c a can. The polish company can sell more for less thus improving their sales and profits than the Irish company, but if there is minimu pricing they would be at a disadvantage.