Ireland has a great problem with alcoholic diseases, mainly between its younger people.
Since 2018 there’s the Minimum Price for spirits, beer and wine, hoping to dissuade many people to buy and drink them. But it isn’t enough, so Irish government in June 2022 said to European Commission its will to add a label to bottles and cans to advise drinkers that alcoholic drinks are harmful for health. If Commission hadn’t said ‘No’ explicitly, Ireland would have gone in that way. From June to December all member States had the chance to send their opinion, pro or con, toward Ireland decision and EU Commission, keeping in mind these opinions, would make its decision.
And decision is to don’t say ‘No’, so Ireland from now can add a label to advice that alcohol is dangerous for health and for pregnant women. In its request, Ireland says that:
Under section 12 of the Act labels on alcohol products must contain:
i. A warning to inform people of the danger of alcohol consumption.
ii. A warning to inform people of the danger of alcohol consumption when pregnant.
iii. A warning to inform people of the direct link between alcohol and fatal cancers.
iv. The quantity of grams of alcohol contained in the product.
v. The number of calories contained in the alcohol product.
vi. A link to a health website which gives information on alcohol and related harms.
You can read the Ireland’s request here, and in the tab ‘Contributions’ you can read the abstract of pros/cons opinions and download the documents. Just in one of these documents (CEVI on 06-09-2022, one of the opponent of Ireland decision) you can find the proposal label. Is this (not the definitive one, I think):
Italian wine in Ireland is actually a negligible part of our 25 Millions and more hectolitres we export, there aren’t even numbers. So, if Italian wineries sell less wine in Ireland, they won’t even notice it.
But Italian newspapers are yelling that this will be a serious problem for the Italian wine, because if another EU member will decide to adopt this law, this new label, this will decrease the amount of Italian wine for export. This is an example: “Ireland: Green light to demonizing messages on alcohol labels”. Demonizing. Demonizing. WTF?
It’s a non-sense.
The Ireland labels will be on all alcoholic beverage: spirits, beer AND wine.
They will be not only on Italian wine’s bottles, but all wines in their shelves and restaurants and wine shops. Mainly Chilean wines, Australian and New Zealand, so should be this ones who are worried.
The label doesn’t say nothing so terrific, in my opinion, and I think it will be low or no importance about alcohol consumption (but I hope I’m wrong). But also 1 live saved it’s good, also 1 young children not in hospital it’s good.
As I wrote in my October, 20 newsletter, alcohol is not healthy. Sure, it depends on the quantities, one or two glasses of wine a day, one shot a week, it isn’t dangerous. But in Ireland they really have a big trouble with alcohol: 300% more beer than the EU average, 250% more spirits than EU average.
Three times more.
I wonder myself instead if a label is enough, and I wonder myself why this problem it isn’t approached some years ago but not from Ireland only but from all European member States, to help Ireland to find a solutiion, without to destroy the alcohol beverage business, of course.
For this reason I’m angry with some newspaper, some website that has reported the news where presidents of Federvini and UIV (Italian Wines Union) can explain their reasons but no Irish people has been interviewed about this. It seems to me that some journalists haven’t even read the Ireland’s request and all documents.