As expected, Scotland have essentially been told no.
[quote:10aejq05]The advocate general to the European court of justice, Yves Bot, has said fixing a legal price for all alcoholic drinks could only be justified to protect public health if no other mechanism, such as tax increases, could be found.[/quote:10aejq05]
More in this article.[/url:10aejq05]
[quote:10aejq05]It is highly likely the ECJ in Luxembourg will now uphold complaints from the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) and nine other member states, including France, Spain and Bulgaria, because its judgments [b:10aejq05]rarely contradict an opinion from the advocate general[/b:10aejq05].[/quote:10aejq05]
This has a number of implications. Ireland, ever the sheep to the UK now has a number of options.
1. Give up on minimum pricing and say [i:10aejq05]we tried[/i:10aejq05].
2. Increase duty.... again!
3. Bring back the groceries order, at least for alcohol.
Option 3 is my preference. Below cost selling is hurting independent off-licences like our good friends in Drinkstore and many others around the country.
It's not perfect of course. Dodgy invoicing can see the cost to supermarkets made artificially low to allow them to get around a below cost selling ban but that can be dealt with by using proper scrutiny.
Ideally, the government would take a more pro-active approach by targeting problem drinking as socially unacceptable. A bit like they did with littering and drink driving, although the latter required severe punishment and the former did require a sort of tax on supermarket bags to get it started.
[img:10aejq05]https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3182/2795240753_161ea09fb7.jpg[/img:10aejq05]
