On 3rd September, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) struck a fatal blow to Scotland’s plans to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol in the much anticipated outcome of the controversial court case.
The legislation that saw the Scottish Parliament bring in a minimum unit price of 50p was passed in May 2012 but the legal challenge brought by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), delayed implementation of the Act.
Infringement of free trade rules
The success of the legal challenge in today’s ruling, also backed by other European wine and spirits producers, is likely to mean that Scotland will not be able to implement the legislation of 2012. European Court’s most senior legal official ruled that minimum unit pricing was an infringement of EU free trade rules.
The Advocate General’s opinion found that fixing a legal price for alcoholic beverages could only be justified if the Scottish Government could prove that alternative means, such as increasing taxation, would not be a “suitable means of curbing excessive consumption”. He said it was “difficult to justify” minimum pricing as it appeared “less efficient and effective” than increasing taxes and may even be perceived as discriminatory.
Ruling welcomed by leading commentator Paul Chase
Paul Chase, author and drinks’ industry leading commentator on alcohol policy and public health, endorsed the same view throughout the legal battle, arguing that minimum pricing will not reduce excessive consumption but will instead penalise responsible, moderate drinkers.
Paul, who has spent years campaigning for transparency on government and health lobby statistics, detailing evidence of problem inflation in his book ‘Culture Wars and Moral Panic – the story of alcohol and society’ said:
“I welcome today’s ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which looks set to reject minimum unit pricing for alcohol. The Scottish Government’s belief that putting a floor under alcohol prices would significantly reduce excessive consumption and health harms was never an evidence-based policy, but a piece of policy-based evidence.
“No matter how many false statistics they tried to crow-bar into the junk-science mathematical models used to justify this measure, the Advocate General has, with his opinion today, seen through this false prospectus and rejected government price-fixing of beverage alcohol.”
“The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has to next issue its final judgement but follows the Advocate General’s opinion in the vast majority of cases. This will hopefully prevent a measure that would have raised the price of nearly 50% of beverage alcohol products sold in the off-trade, and penalised responsible, moderate drinkers as well as impacting disproportionately on people on low incomes, such as pensioners, without really impacting on the consumption of dependent drinkers.”
The judgement is likely to come from Luxembourg within the next six months and will then be referred back to the Court of Sessions in Edinburgh for a final ruling which is expected late 2015 or early 2016.