How Europe could soon start treating wine like tobacco
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/01/how-europe-could-soon-start-treating-wine-like-tobacco/
Excerpt:
In December last year, as reported by db at the time, the European Commission approved the conclusion of a report from BECA – the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Beating Cancer – which stated that there is no alcohol consumption without health risks.
With 29 votes in favour, and just one against (along with four abstentions), this report must now be studied, before a further vote by the European Parliament on its findings on 14 February – just over two weeks from now.
Following that, should the report by fully adopted, wine producers in the EU’s 27 member nations could face a series of restrictions, which may concern the way the product is promoted, and how its priced, while the EU could stop funding anything related to the making of alcoholic drinks, vineyard management included.
It’s a development that has both “frightened” and “shocked” the likes of Dr Ignacio Sánchez Recarte, who is the secretary general of the Comité Européen des Enterprises Vins (CEEV), who told db last week that the focus in Europe has shifted from targeting alcohol harm, to trying to reduce consumption for everyone, using, he fears, measures that would create “a completely different” world for the wine industry in Europe.
Commenting that the BECA report has adopted the findings of a “flawed” scientific study that featured in The Lancet in 2018 – which concluded that there is “no safe level” of alcohol consumption – he said that the EU doesn’t seem to be interested in considering all the credible studies concerning the health implications of drinking, calling the current approach “a dogma built around cancer”.
Indeed, the conclusion that imbibing even small amounts of alcohol is harmful to humans “contradicts over a century of scientific evidence that moderate consumption has health benefits”.
....In essence, there is a move to demonise the wider drinks industry, he said, by talking about it “like the big alcoholic enemy”.
In reality, he reminded db, “The wine sector is one of the pillars of socio-economic sustainability in our rural areas,” before adding that “wine is key to rural development,” while, he stressed, “wine consumed in moderation is a joy, and a cultural contribution”.
However, should the final vote on 14 February see the BECA report approved in its entirety, then “it will be a blank cheque for the Commission to modify the full information on consumption regulation,” he said.
This will require them to look at health messages concerning alcohol, which he foresees being “transformed to health warnings that can link any kind of alcohol consumption and cancer… damaging the image of our product”.
....In short, should the report be approved in two weeks’ time, then, fears Dr Ignacio, it will give “those who want to destroy our sector the moral authority of proposing super restrictive measures [on the wine sector in Europe].”
In the meantime, wine and the wider alcoholic drinks industry has just a few days to convince members of the European parliament that it is a “sustainable and responsible sector”, and “defend ourselves with a complete vision of what the science says [concerning alcohol and health].”
*****
Destroying the life of the middle class via a power grab based on suspect research. Sounds familiar doesn’t it. And yes the WHO is in the background also. The “Great Reset” is going swimmingly in Europe. If they pass this will be interesting to see how France reacts.
They gave the parasite political class power and will have to fight to get the power back, which I doubt due to Europe being indoctrinated passive leftists IMO. Their future Muslim overlords will be happy.