DG Sanco released on april 6th a report concerning the affordability of alcoholic producs across Europe, and of the potential impacts of affordability on harmful use of alcohol. The report was conducted by Rand, a nonprofit research organisation, for the European Commission.

The major findings in the report is

There has been a decline in the real value of alcohol excise duty rates across the EU
The real value of excise duty rates for most alcoholic beverages has gone down since 1996 in the vast majority of EU Member States. Notable exceptions are the UK and Italy, which have seen an increase in the real value of excise duty rates for beer; with an increase for
wine too in the UK.

There is a trend across the EU towards more off-trade alcohol consumption, which tends to be cheaper than alcohol sold on-trade.
On-trade refers to pubs, clubs, restaurants and other retailers selling alcohol for consumption within the venue. Off-trade refers to
supermarkets and off-licences, selling alcohol for consumption elsewhere. In countries such as the UK, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Ireland and The Netherlands, off-trade alcohol sales appear to be growing relative to on-trade.

Alcohol has become more affordable across the EU since 1996
The affordability of alcohol is a composite measure looking at the net effect of price and income. The affordability of alcoholic beverages has increased in all countries examined, apart from Italy. The analysis indicates that across the EU, 84% of the increase in alcohol affordability was
driven by increases in income, and only 16% was driven by changes in alcohol prices. This is primarily because while incomes went up considerably across the EU, the relative price of alcoholic beverages has remained relatively stable, or fallen at a lower rate than the
income increases.

There is a positive relationship between alcohol affordability and alcohol consumption in the EU
The balance of existing evidence indicates that there is a negative relationship between alcohol price and consumption, and a positive relationship between income and consumption.

There is a positive relationship between alcohol consumption and three types of harms: liver cirrhosis, traffic injuries and traffic deaths
The analysis suggests positive, statistically significant associations between alcohol consumption and three indicators of harm: fatal traffic accidents, (non-fatal) traffic injuries and liver cirrhosis. More specifically, they find that a 1% increase in per capita alcohol
consumption is associated with an increase of 0.85% in fatal traffic accidents, 0.61% in traffic injuries, and 0.37% in the incidence of liver cirrhosis within the same year.

The report concludes that in combination with the existing body of research on the link between alcohol price/income/affordability and consumption, and on the direct link between alcohol price/income and harms – provides strong support for the use of alcohol pricing
policies as a potentially effective measure to curb hazardous and harmful drinking in Europe. The report also highlights how cross-border alcohol shopping for personal use has negative implications for the importing country.

Even though changes in alcohol pricing policy could have positiv eimpact on alcohol consumption the report also accknowledge that
increases in the minimum excise duty or revisions to indicativ elevels for personal use for cross-border alcohol purchases seems unlikely because of single markets priorities and the need for consensus by all member states in EU fiscal policy.

These conclusions was written in the summary, for the whole report go here.