Legislative project to cut the amount of sugar from beverages tacitly adopted by Romanian Senate

Anca Alexe 26/11/2018 | 15:48

The draft bill proposing an additional tax on beverages with high sugar content, initiated by USR senator Adrian Wiener, tacitly passed the Senate today. The project now awaits a vote from the Chamber of Deputies as decisional chamber, according to hotnews.ro.

Wiener says that the bill’s main goal is to incentivize beverage manufacturers to cut the amount of added sugar in their products.

“The law’s main goal isn’t to tax the consumer, but to encourage producers’ social responsibility and lead them to voluntarily redevelop their products so that they pay lower taxes. It’s obvious that the producers don’t want to stay in the competition niche with fruit juices, that they want to keep their market share in terms of sales volume. This means that they have to benefit from the lower tax rate and voluntarily reformulate their sugar content,” Wiener told Hotnews.

Romania has the highest rate of diabetes in the EU, with 11.6 percent of 18-65 year-olds diagnosed with the condition (type 1 and 2). Romanians are also the biggest consumers of sugar in the EU, with an average of 30 kg/year – twice the EU average.

Weiner added that other countries that have implemented such a tax saw positive changes in a very short time: “In the UK, for example, only two weeks after this instrument was implemented, the amount of sugar used by manufacturers lowered so as to bring them into the lower tax bands.”

The draft bill is also supported by the World Health Organisation, and a representative of the institution spoke at the Public Health Commission in the Senate last week backing the project.