The Constitutional Council has rejected an amendment to the Loi Evin that would potentially have initiated the end of France’s position in the top of the world’s countries with the strongest alcohol marketing restrictions.
France’s highest lawmaking body has rejected the amendment, which had already been approved by Parliament, because it deemed the plans to amend a public health law, under the guise of the economic package of the Macron Law, to be ‘not appropriate.’
This is the second time the wine industry initiated amendment to the loi Evin has gone through government. The first time around it was introduced in a health package and did not get approval in parliament. Because the rejection of the amendment was not based on the content of the plans, but on the package of laws it was wrapped up in, it is widely expected that the lobby behind the amendment will reintroduce the plans to the Parliament a third time. It is expected they will try again as a health law, on which voting is planned during the fall of 2015.
“This shows again the power of the industry lobby. The loi Evin does not need to be clarified. It is clear enough. It protects young people and is not inciting consumption”, said Claude Rivière of the Association Nationale de Prévention en Alcoologie et Addictologie (ANPAA). Rivière further explained that the Evin law also “allows editorial content on wine so far as the content is informative. The preservation of France as a wine country is in no way threatened by the loi Evin in its current edition. ANPAA asks to preserve the current balance between protection of health and product information as all the parliamentary groups have agreed to do.”
Source: decanter.com 08/10/15
