Complaints from Food Industries about Estonian Alcohol Policy

Sirje Potisepp, head of Estonian Association of Food Industries, criticized the Estonian alcohol policy saying that raising excise taxes on these products is not the best way to take.

Such complaints come from the fact that, if we take into account next year 10% surge, the excise taxes on alcohol have grown by a 43% in the last two years.

The opinion of alcohol producers is that this increasing in the taxes is contributing to the drop in beer sales over the past years.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Finance asserted that the consumption fell because of the incomes falling and not because higher taxes. To explain this, from the office of the Ministry  they set the example of wine, whose taxes were not raised last year but which consumption kept declining anyway.