European Court of Justice to weigh in on MUP

The European Court of Justice is set to publish its decision on whether Scotland’s plans to introduce minimum unit pricing on alcohol contravenes EU trade laws.

The European Court of Justice will issue its ruling on Scotland’s plans to introduce MUP on 23 December

The court’s ruling on 23 December will follow that of the EU’s advocate general Yves Bot, who when issuing his official opinion in September this year said MUP was justified on public health grounds, but only when the measure is “proportionate and necessary”.

Bot stated that the measure could only be justified if no other protection of public health, such as tax increases, was viable.

Scotland approved a 50p minimum unit cost on alcoholic beverages in 2012 as part of the government’s efforts to crackdown on harmful drinking.

Trade bodies the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) and Spirits Europe, along with other parties, challenged the legislation, but their arguments were thrown out of Scotland’s Court of Session in 2013.

As such, the organisations took their plight to the European Court of Justice.

The Scottish government has not been able to implement MUP while the court battles have been ongoing. Once the European Court of Justice has issued its ruling, Scotland’s Court of Session will be able to make the final decision with regards to the legality of MUP.

While health advocates and lawmakers claim MUP is a way to tackle harmful drinking, industry members have called it an “illegal barrier to trade” that will not be effective in its intended cause, since the majority of harmful drinkers are “not price sensitive”.

At the time Yves Bot’s opinion was published, Paul Skehan, secretary general of Spirits Europe told The Spirits Business: “MUP is based on the fallacious assumption that if people need to spend more, then the problem of harmful drinking will go away.

“There’s no way that this temperance-based, semi-prohibition initiative can work. We want it to become socially unacceptable to binge drink. We do see there are problems, but we disagree with the government on how to tackle them.”

Last week, the Irish government approved legislation to tackle alcohol misuse, including minimum unit pricing, compulsory nutritional labelling and health warnings on bottles.