June 12, 2007
Vodka lovers at the last chance saloon
When politicians talk of a “European spirit” they are not usually referring to vodka. Yet the potent, clear drink is at the heart of a dispute over European values – and money – that will be played out next week in the European parliament.
MEPs will vote on what ingredients can be used to make vodka – and the signs are that those from producing countries will be defeated.
Alex Stubb, a Finnish centre-right MEP, says that would break a promise made when his country and Sweden entered the EU that the national drink would receive similar protection to wine, whisky, rum and grappa, which all have a strict limit on ingredients.
For Scandinavia, the Baltic states and Poland, vodka is made from cereals, potato or (at a pinch) sugar beet. However, these plucky producers find themselves up against powerful multinational companies. France and the UK have substantial producers who use grapes.
The central issue, those drinks makers, such as Diageo of the UK, say, is that vodka’s taste is not derived from its ingredients, unlike whisky or wine. You could be shot in Poland for saying such a thing about a shot.
“This is neo-colonialism,” said Boguslaw Sonik, a Polish MEP, saying Poland’s 400 years of vodka-making tradition could be wiped out.
The vodka lovers have conceded some ground. They would now like to see a compromise suggested by the parliament’s environment committee adopted. That would require vodka made from anything other than the three ingredients to state clearly on the front of the label at two-thirds the size of the word vodka.
But the beer-drinking barbarians of Germany, chairing the EU, have convinced agriculture ministers to back a less restrictive version, which will be voted on by parliament. That would require a tiny mention on the back label. At the risk of going bleary-eyed, take a look at the different labels here.
“What we really experience right now is a battle between the vodka belt and the wine belt with the beer belt in between and more or less undecided,” Lasse Lehtinen, a Finnish Socialist, said. The vodka belt can only muster around 120 of the 785 MEPs at the moment.
“At least we have taken up the fight. We will fall with our boots on,” said Mr Stubb, a Finn, though it was not clear whether he was referring to the impending defeat or one too many slugs of the hard stuff.
Meanwhile, he was hopeful of support from France, citing President Nicolas Sarkozy’s shaky performance at the G8 after a long meeting with the vodka-drinking President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
