Alcohol-related deaths must be reduced and wine producers protected.
A glass of wine with a meal, followed by a digestive schnapps: alcohol consumption in Europe is above average, which also has consequences for health. According to OECD estimates, around 1.1 million people could die every year from alcohol abuse over the next 30 years.
Now there is a new and concrete demand to reduce consumption: as the website “euractiv” reports, French MEP Cyrille Isaac-Sibille, from the liberal group “Renew Europe”, wants to introduce a minimum price for alcohol across the EU – on the one hand in order to limit the number of alcohol-related deaths, on the other hand, to protect the wine industry.
The minimum price must therefore be defined based on the alcohol content: the French Office for Combating Drugs and Dependent Behavior calculates that 50 cents per unit of alcohol would lead to a reduction in alcohol-related cancer mortality by more than a fifth.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a “unit of alcohol” as plus or minus ten grams of pure alcohol (ethanol). This corresponds to approximately one small beer (25cl) or ten centiliters of wine. According to the WHO recommendation, men should not drink more than 2.5 units of alcohol per day and women should only drink 1.5.
The WHO also believes that a minimum price for alcoholic beverages makes sense because, according to the organization, this is the most effective measure against cheap drinks with a high alcohol content.