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2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Limits to Behavioural Consumer Law and Policy: The Case of EU Alcohol Labelling

Authors : Hanna Schebesta, Kai Purnhagen

Published in: Consumer Law and Economics

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Limits of the implementation of findings from behavioural science into law and policy are increasingly recognized in the literature. In this contribution, we analyse the example of alcohol nutrition labelling to show the potential and the limits of how behavioural science can be meaningfully used to inform policy makers. We first explain what we understand to be proxies for the limit of the implementation of behavioural science into policy. Subsequently we illustrate how alcohol nutrition labelling is currently regulated and survey the on-going policy process, including an analysis of the self-regulatory proposals that have been tabled by the alcohol beverages industry. We then survey and apply existing consumer studies. Our research shows that behavioural insights support stronger alcohol nutrition labelling at a general level. However, the different options of labelling are currently understudied and provide an insufficiently sound empirical basis for policy making.

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previous chapter In Search of the Theory of Harm in EU Consumer Law: Lessons from the Consumer Fitness Check

next chapter Environmental Protection by Means of Consumer Law? Sustainability and Civil Law: The Example of Climate Protection

See e.g. Straßheim and Beck (2019).

Alemanno and Sibony (2015) and Mathis (2015).

Herpen and Purnhagen (2018) and Sibony (2015).

Purnhagen and Schebesta (2019).

Purnhagen (2014), Purnhagen (2015) and Sibony (2015).

Fabbri and Faure (2018), Purnhagen and Feindt (2015) and Purnhagen (2018).

Purnhagen and Schebesta (2019).

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Such as Art. 9 (1) lit. k, 16 (4), 28, and 41 FIR.

Art. 9 (1) lit. k FIR requires for all “beverages containing more than 1,2% by volume of alcohol” to indicate “the actual alcoholic strength by volume” as a mandatory food information to consumers.

Art. 16 (4) subpara 1 FIR relaxes food information obligations “for beverages containing more than 1,2% by volume of alcohol” in a way that the “list of ingredients or a mandatory nutrition declaration” is not needed.

Article 4(3)b of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods, OJ L 404, 30.12.2006, pp. 9–25.

Originally Council Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 of 29 April 2008 on the common organisation of the market in wine, amending Regulations (EC) No 1493/1999, (EC) No 1782/2003, (EC) No 1290/2005, (EC) No 3/2008 and repealing Regulations (EEC) No 2392/86 and (EC) No 1493/1999 [now repealed].

General CMO-Regulation of 2013, Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural products and repealing Council Regulations (EEC) No 922/72, (EEC) No 234/79, (EC) No 1037/2001 and (EC) No 1234/2007 – OJ L 347, 20.12.2013, p. 672.

The recognized categories of grapevine products (Annex VII 2013 CMO Regulation) are wine, new wine still in fermentation, liqueur wine, sparkling wine, quality/aerated/semi- sparkling wine, grape must (partially fermented, concentrated, rectified), wine from raisined overripe grapes, wine vinegar. Wine, by definition, may be obtained exclusively from the total or partial alcoholic fermentation of fresh grapes.

Now Article 119(1)(g) of 2013 CMO Regulation, ex-Article 59 of Wine CMO Regulation.

Regulation 110/2008 on the definition, description, presentation, labelling and the protection of geographical indications of spirit drinks and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 1576/89, Regulation (EC) No 110/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the definition, description, presentation, labelling and protection of geographical indications of spirit drinks—OJ L 39, 13.2.2008, p. 16.

Regulation (EU) No 251/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the definition, description, presentation, labelling and the protection of geographical indications of aromatised wine products and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 1601/91 – OJ L 84, 20.3.2014, pp. 14–34.

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GfK Consumer Insights Study, Report for the Brewers of Europe by GfK Belgium (2016), available at http://www.beerwisdom.eu/downloads/GfK-Consumer-Insights-Study.pdf, p. 4.

See on the parallels Lustig (2010) and Lustig et al. (2012).

Report from the European Commission to the European Parliament and the Council regarding the mandatory labelling of the list of ingredients and the nutrition declaration of alcoholic beverages, Brussels, 13.3.2017, COM(2017) 58 final, section 1: “While nutrition labelling can play a certain role in the promotion of a more moderate alcohol consumption, the issue of the labelling of the list of ingredients and the nutrition declaration for alcoholic beverages is examined in this report under the perspective of consumer information about the identity and the properties of a food.”

Hodgkins et al. (2012) and Bialkova et al. (2013).

On file with one of the authors.

Alcoholic Beverage Labeling Act (ABLA) of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Pub.L. 100–690, 102 Stat. 4181, enacted November 18, 1988, H.R. 5210.

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Purnhagen and van Kleef (2018), p. 126.

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Title: Limits to Behavioural Consumer Law and Policy: The Case of EU Alcohol Labelling
Authors: Hanna Schebesta
Kai Purnhagen
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Consumer Law and Economics
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-49027-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-49028-7

Copyright Year: 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49028-7_13