Wednesday 22 September 2010

Minimum Pricing

The BBC reports (elephant free of course):
The Scottish government's plans for minimum drink pricing are set to be defeated at Holyrood, despite a last-minute offer to save the measure.
Blah blah blah. We all know the proposal is illegal, but what's interesting so did the Scottish Parliament. They were warned back in March this year that minimum pricing was a breach of EU law:
A European Union court has today ruled against member countries which operate minimum pricing policies.

The Court of Justice of the European Union upheld an earlier opinion that setting minimum prices for tobacco in Ireland, France and Austria is against EU directives.

The move calls into question the SNP's proposed policy on minimum alcohol pricing.

Gavin Hewitt, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, said: "Given this latest evidence, the Scottish Government must now recognise the legal realities.

"It cannot introduce a trade barrier in breach of the UK's European obligations by imposing minimum pricing on alcohol in Scotland."
Yet they pressed ahead with it anyway. So the question remains; are they stupid, or continued with the charade so that they can pretend that they still run their own country?

No comments:

Post a Comment