Pro
Germans drink on average per year about 88 liters of beer, 19 liters of wine, more than three liters of sparkling wine, and around 5.1 liters of spirits. Although consumption is declining, there is more drinking here than in many other EU countries.
Sure, for the many businesses that live off beer and wine, it would be foolish if tax increases reduced their sales and revenues. But is that reason enough not to even consider it? Even among the many innkeepers who cry out at the idea because they fear having to close their doors, one can ask: Why not switch to non-alcoholic alternatives or innovative bar concepts?
Because on the other side stand traffic fatalities, addicts, and those who become ill from the consequences of consuming the nerve poison alcohol, which burdens the health system.
Experts repeatedly criticize alcohol consumption in Germany, most recently the drugs commissioner Hendrik Streeck (CDU). He labeled price the “strongest lever” to reduce consumption. “An increase of 10 cents per beer could, according to the German Centre for Addiction Issues, save 850 lives annually and bring in 1.4 billion euros,” was reported in April. How much of this could be modernized in education and infrastructure with those 1.4 billion euros?
Or you could strike two birds with one stone and invest the money raised by a tax increase into the promotion of leisure activities that promote health, rather than corrupting them. After all, the gap that a price increase in drinking would create in many people’s weekend plans would have to be filled.
Critics of the tax increase repeatedly propose “more education” as an alternative. Yet, in the land of poets and thinkers, where the cheers for anything worth celebrating run so deep-rooted, education alone cannot reach these roots.
According to the German Centre for Addiction Issues, alcohol costs the health system 57 billion euros, for medical bills, hospital stays, and medications. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if, through less drinking, more money—and time—was left for health problems that are not self-inflicted?
The Germans would have to drink less life if life were more beautiful. If health costs were lower. If the father after the village festival had not driven drunk into a tree or been struck by a drunken cyclist on a bike. An increase in taxes, of course, does not solve the problems by itself. And yet it would be a step toward a better society.
Whereas here there is a brandy tax of just over 13 euros per liter of pure alcohol, Sweden taxes spirits at 60 euros per liter of pure alcohol. In the United Kingdom, the corresponding tax amounts to 33 euros. It is therefore possible to charge more for alcohol.
And those who see an increase in the alcohol tax as a restriction of freedom overlook how deeply rooted the drinking culture in Germany is, where drinking is so taken for granted that one is still often looked at oddly when one does not drink at birthdays, company parties, or Christmas markets; that the prevailing “normal” exerts pressure and limits freedom. Klaudia Lagozinski
Contra
There is a massive alcohol problem in Germany, we do not need to argue about that. Far too many people drink far too much. Far too many become ill or drink themselves to death. It seems natural to make the dangerous substance more expensive, as the drugs commissioner Hendrik Streeck (CDU) has now suggested, who regards price as the “strongest lever” to “reduce consumption.” It sounds logical. But like so many seemingly simple solutions, this one also has a catch: It would be highly unsocial.
From a price increase on beer, wine, and spirits, new dangers could arise—for society and for health. A few cents more in taxes on alcohol that everyone could pay would not be enough. To truly significantly change consumption, the price would have to be raised substantially. That would hardly bother the rich, but the middle class certainly and the poor all the more. Now one could say: Then they’ll just drink less, which is good! But that would be extremely pretentious and paternalistic.
Moreover, it would overlook the fact that not all alcohol consumers instantly become ill and addicted, so ideally every sip should be prevented and thus every means would be permissible. Alcohol is certainly not healthy, but not heroin or crack. Even the former, clearly health-conscious and salt-free living Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) regarded one glass of wine a day as harmless. That could then be argued.
In any case, millions of people in Germany manage to drink moderately without getting sick. And that must be trusted to poor people as well. A price increase would severely disadvantage them and, in the truest sense of the word, patronize them, while the champagne at the golf club continues to flow.
Who has enough money could still enjoy his after-work beer even if it cost 10 euros. Who relies on basic security or meager wages but does not. Do we really want unemployed people to never again be able to go to the pub next door? This injustice may not bother CDU politicians, but would provoke justified discontent and would be the surest lever to generate new societal tensions. Like with a drastic increase in the price of meat and flies and heating without social compensation for the poorer. Which party could benefit most from drastically higher beer prices is easy to guess.
Whoever is willing to accept this should consider: Even such high alcohol prices would not eradicate the urge for intoxication that has existed since time immemorial. It is to be feared that many at-risk individuals would switch to secretly imported cheap booze or illegally distilled schnapps, which would be even more dangerous.
More sensible than a higher alcohol tax would be measures that do not financially disadvantage anyone: perhaps a higher starting age and a ban on “accompanied drinking” in restaurants, as Streeck suggests, meaning that young people there may not drink even when accompanied by their parents. Or a ban on alcohol advertising. In any case, more support, medical and psychological aid for alcoholics. But please no unsocial price increase. Lukas Wallraff
