Next to the law forbidding smoking in public places, the Polish Parliament wants to amend the law on alcoholism prevention. The bill may change a lot on the market of alcohol producers worth over PLN 20bn (EUR 6.2bn) annually. It provides for big warnings to be put on the bottles and cans. The warnings should inform about the danger of drinking by pregnant or breast feeding women, teenagers and drivers. They should constitute 20 percent of the package, the letters should be white put on a red label. Law & Justice MPs who prepared the bill want additionally to ban beer commercials till 11 p.m.
“Our bill is in line with EU and WTO. It’s an answer to rapid growth of alcohol consumption in Poland noted recently, especially among youth of 15-24 years of age, including a dramatic increase among girls. The bill has two opponents: producers and broadcasters”, Tadeusz Cymanski, PiS MP said.
“The requirement to put warnings will not solve the problem of alcohol misuse in our opinion”, Danuta Gut from Browary Polskie association of breweries commented.
In addition, it won’t be easy to implemented the warnings.
“It will require consultations with other EU countries because it will cause problems with importing alcohol. Besides, the EC wants make a research through 2009 on how effective such means are. Brussels gives clear signals that instead of founding a new EU directive it would rather see producers coming up with effective solutions”, Danuta Gut said.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.310)