Warnings about cigarettes are nothing new. Now the first EU country has similar shocking labels for alcohol. The decision caused outrage.
Ireland is taking a tough line on alcohol – the toughest in the EU. The country has decided to place mandatory warnings on the labels of alcoholic beverages. New Irish law requires these labels to show calorie content and alcohol percentage. In addition, warnings about the risk of alcohol consumption during pregnancy and the risk of fatal tumors should be placed on bottles of beer, wine and the like.
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three year period
The Irish government will give the alcohol industry a three-year grace period to put the new warning labels on packaging. “It’s clear that in some ways we’re going against the domestic market as we’re pushing further changes to a product compared to how it’s sold in other countries,” said Claire Gordon, head of tobacco and alcohol control at the Irish department. of health.
Great indignation in Italy
Italy, on the other hand, has the opposite view on alcohol – our neighbors are outraged. The country is planning a campaign in Europe against Irish shock labels on wine bottles. The Italian Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, wants to protest in Brussels against the decision of the Irish Parliament. He stressed that the decision could distort the market, which he believes violates EU law. Italy’s negative position has already won support from major wine producing countries such as France and Spain.
“Completely inappropriate”
The president of the Italian farmers’ association Coldiretti, Ettore Prandini, was also upset. “It is totally inappropriate to equate the excessive consumption of spirits, common in Nordic countries, with the moderate and conscious consumption of quality products with lower alcohol content, such as beer and wine”, he said. “The EU’s commitment to protecting citizens’ health cannot be implemented with decisions that run the risk of unfairly criminalizing individual products, regardless of the quantities consumed”, says Prandini.
Nav account single time24.05.2023, 16:37| Act: 05/24/2023, 4:37 pm