Why Alcohol Is No Ordinary Commodity in the EU–Thailand Trade Talks
As a global people’s movement working to promote solidarity, justice, and development Movendi International is protecting and promoting people’s power to shape their own societies. This matters in trade agreement negotiations where matters of public health, safety, and sustainability are often at risk. But we have a track record of defending people’s interests and the public good together with our members over the past decade.
Now we’re in a new fight again concerning free trade talks between the European Union and Thailand, because the EU is doing the dirty for Big Alcohol. What is decided behind closed doors will shape whether Thai communities keep the power to protect their own health, or hand that power to the alcohol industry’s profit greed. Part of our work is to partner with our members in Thailand, support them, and the other part is to advocate towards the European Commission and bring their agenda out of the shadows into the public space.
Trade Should Serve Not Jeopardise People’s Health
Health is the foundation of prosperity. And most people rank health and well-being highest.
A community that can warn people honestly about cancer risk, limit harmful alcohol marketing to children, and price alcohol to reflect its true cost to society, is a stronger community. And a happier one.
Alcohol is no ordinary commodity. There are books about that topic! Alcohol is not rice, not textiles, not solar panels. It causes cancer, violence and premature death, and no trade agreement should treat it as just another export line.
Our concern is that Thailand has already shown what happens when alcohol gets cheaper:
- In 2024 Thailand cut wine tariffs and excise together.
- The consequences were that retail prices fell by roughly 35 to 40 percent.
Now spiritsEUROPE – Big Alcohol’s European lobby front group – is pushing the European Commission to remove Thailand’s spirits tariffs as a top target for the trade agreement negotiations.
It is troubling because we’ve seen story of what will happen: the EU-India trade agreement, concluded this January, cut spirits tariffs from up to 150 percent down to 40.
Conflict: The Money Versus The Many
This is where we see the conflict clearly: the money versus the many.
Cheaper alcohol means more alcohol consumption, more harm, more suffering in our communities. But it also means more profits for Big Alcohol companies, while the harms they are causing are landing hardest on families and communities who are most at risk of severe damages.
A country’s sovereignty to determine alcohol prices is crucial for health promotion and development because protecting people, especially youth, from Big Alcohol’s ultra-cheap products and ensuring the alcohol industry pays for the harm their products and practices are causing through evidence-based alcohol taxes is the single most cost-effective alcohol policy solution available.
And beyond price there are additional threats to Thailand’s right to take regulatory action and set standards for alcohol companies at all. Look at different country examples:
- In 2016, the EU filed a trade dispute against Colombia’s alcohol tax on behalf of European alcohol industry giants.
- Also in 2016, eleven EU countries used trade claims to block Ire.and’s Alcohol Bill on behalf of alcohol companies.
- Recently, Ireland’s government delayed to 2028 warning labels on alcohol after years preparing world-first cancer warning labels, because of trade pressure, after the U.S. called the labels a “barrier to trade” and the European spirits lobby demanded an investigation.
- Scientists found that industry claims against alcohol labelling in ten countries, Thailand among them, were echoed almost word for word in official government trade objections, without ever naming their source.
This means that a binding dispute chapter builds a permanent channel for alcohol industry pressure and interference against public health action on alcohol: on labels, on marketing standards, on whatever Big Alcohol decides to target as “trade barrier”.
The problem with trade agreements such as the one between India and the EU or the one being negotiated right now between Thailand and the EU is that market access commitments lock in once the agreements are signed. Distribution rights and national treatment can turn tomorrow’s health measure into a legal liability years from now.
This is a serious risk for public health and development progress.
Thailand’s Opportunities
But here is the opportunity. Thailand does not have to accept alcohol as an ordinary traded good. Other countries are providing useful examples:
- Malaysia keeps alcohol permanently excluded from its ASEAN commitments.
- The CPTPP carved out tobacco because it is a health harming, not ordinary, product and industry. We need the same approach to alcohol.
- Vietnam built safeguard tariffs into its own EU trade agreement to slow alcohol import surges.
These are precedents, written into real agreements, because civil society demanded them and governments stood up against health harming industry lobbyists and for their soverignty to take action for public health.
This is the power people’s movements like the one our members have built in Thailand already hold.
Ten years ago, Movendi International and partners did similar work in Europe, publishing independent analysis of the EU-Canada and EU-US trade deals with EPHA, our members in Sweden, and other partners.
Community power has moved trade negotiations towards people’s health protections before.
Applying these insights and lessons, our ask has three parts:
- Exclude alcohol from this agreement entirely.
- In case that cannot be achieved: carve-out alcohol explicitly to protect every current and future public health measure to prevent and reduce alcohol harms.
- If tariffs fall regardless, raise alcohol excise taxes to match, so prices don’t fall and harm rises.
This is about the many versus the money: people’s health and prosperity, against the alcohol industry’s profit greed. Movendi International stands with Thailand’s communities and their right to protect their health and development.
Movendi International Work to Protect Health in Trade Agreements
A track record spanning more than a decade: Movendi International and partners across the globe, standing up for people’s health every time trade negotiators have tried to bargain it away.
2012 Solidarity Even In Free Trade Talks
The beginning of Movendi advocacy, centring the values of solidarity and development for all: trade solidarity has to include public health, not just market access.
2013 Free Trade That Puts People Over Profits
The stakes, stated clearly: when a trade deal ranks corporate profit over people, that’s a human rights problem, not a technicality.
2013 Public Interest Coalition Opposes Fast-Track Authority For TPPA
Movendi joins a wider coalition against fast-track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership – speed, they warn, is the enemy of scrutiny, transperency and trade agreements in the public interest.
2014 Alcohol Harm And Trade Globalization In Emerging Markets
The pattern takes shape: as emerging markets open to trade, alcohol harm rises as tariffs tumble.
2015 New Study About TTIP Impact On Public Health
TTIP, decoded: a new report, with Kristina Sperkova’s take attached, spells out what the US-EU mega-deal could mean for evidence-based alcohol policy.
2015 Investigating TTIP: International Trade Law, Health Systems And Public Health
The receipts: an independent, Movendi-backed study assesses what a US-EU trade deal would actually do to health systems, not just growth charts.
2015 TTIP: Deregulatory Desires Of Big Alcohol
Follow the money: how Big Alcohol used TTIP talks to chip away at evidence-based alcohol policy on both sides of the Atlantic.
2016 EU Files Dispute VS Colombia’s Alcohol Tax
Exhibit A: the European Commission hauls Colombia to the WTO over its alcohol tax – doing the dirty work for the alcohol industry, and in opposition to public health.
2016 New Booklet: Unhealthy Side Effects Of CETA
Movendi International and EPHA shape the trade discourse: CETA’s health harming effects, chapter and verse.
2016 Over 450 European, Canadian Civil Society Groups Urge Legislators To Reject CETA
The coalition scales up: 450-plus groups across Europe and Canada tell their legislators to vote CETA down over public health concerns.
2016 Ireland: Alcohol Bill Opposed By 11 EU Countries
A preview of today’s headlines: 11 EU governments push back on Ireland’s public health alcohol bill, nearly a decade before the cancer warning labelling fight.
2017 Health Impact Of Trade And Investment Agreements
The evidence base grows: trade and investment treaties carry real health risks, unless health protections are built in from the start.
2019 Big Alcohol: Liquor Giants Create Global Lobby Group
Big Alcohol lobby gears up: liquor giants launch the World Spirits Alliance, a new global front group built to protect profit interests.
2020 Industry Submissions on Alcohol in the Context of Australia’s Trade and Investment Agreements
The lobbying isn’t subtle: a study catches the alcohol industry actively shaping Australia’s trade negotiations for private economic gain.
2022 Big Alcohol Uses Free Trade Deal Between UK and India to Weaken India’s Alcohol Policy
Follow the whisky: Pernod Ricard’s Chivas Brothers eyes the UK-India deal to open India’s market, health concerns be damned.
2022 Special Feature: No Ordinary Commodity – Trade, Big Alcohol and Alcohol Harm
The Alcohol Issues Special Features creates a state of the art overview on trade and alcohol policy: alcohol is no ordinary commodity, and trade law needs to stop pretending otherwise.
2022 Big Alcohol Exploits India-UK Trade Agreement to Reduce Tariffs, Increase Profits
The alcohol industry’s ask, in writing: slash India’s alcohol tariffs 75% now, 30% within three years, and let their own products flood in.
Sources
In the order referenced above.
- Babor et al., “Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity: Research and Public Policy.” Oxford Academic https://academic.oup.com/book/45328
- WHO Europe, “Alcohol and cancer” fact sheet https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/fact-sheets/item/alcohol-and-cancer
- US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), international affairs resources for Thailand. 2024 tariff/excise cut and price impact https://www.ttb.gov/itd/international-affairs-resources-for-thailand
- spiritsEUROPE, “Challenges facing the industry” https://spirits.eu/issues/external-trade/challenges-facing-the-industry
- Outlook Business, “Cheers for booze: India–EU FTA brings 20–50% tariff cuts on beers, spirits” (January 2026) https://www.outlookbusiness.com/economy-and-policy/cheers-for-booze-indiaeu-fta-brings-2050-tariff-cuts-on-beers-spirits
- WHO SAFER initiative, “Pricing policies on alcohol” https://www.who.int/initiatives/SAFER/pricing-policies
- Movendi International, “Alcohol Cancer Warnings Delayed: Ireland Prioritises Big Booze Interests Over People’s Health and Rights” (23 July 2025) https://movendi.ngo/policy-updates/2025/07/23/alcohol-cancer-warnings-delayed-ireland-prioritises-big-booze-interests-over-peoples-health-and-rights/
- The Irish Times, “Drinks Ireland warned Taoiseach that alcohol health labelling plans seen as ‘trade barrier’ by US” (23 July 2025) https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/07/23/drinks-ireland-warned-taoiseach-that-alcohol-health-labelling-plans-seen-as-trade-barrier-by-us/
- just-drinks, “EU alcohol trade bodies demand action over Ireland’s health warning proposal” https://www.just-drinks.com/news/eu-trade-bodies-seek-eu-action-on-ireland-alcohol-labeling-laws/
- Barlow et al. (as reported by LSE), “Industry influence over global alcohol policies via the World Trade Organization: a qualitative analysis of discussions on alcohol health warning labelling, 2010–19,” The Lancet Global Health (2021) https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(21)00570-2/fulltext
- LSE press release on the above study, “Industry arguments against alcohol labelling influencing WTO policy discussions” https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2022/b-Feb-22/Industry-arguments-against-alcohol-labelling-influencing-WTO
- European Commission, EU–Vietnam trade agreement texts (distribution and national-treatment commitments) https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/viet-nam/eu-viet-nam-agreements/texts-agreements_en
- Malaysia MITI, ASEAN Free Trade Area commitments (alcohol exclusion) https://fta.miti.gov.my/index.php/pages/view/asean-afta?mid=50
- SEATCA, “FAQ on the tobacco carve-out” (CPTPP) https://seatca.org/seatca-faq-on-the-tobacco-carve-out/
- BIOTHAI, “7 Sensitive Issues in the Thai-EU FTA That Thais Must Watch Before the Government Rushes to Close the Deal by the End of 2026” (24 July 2026). Issue 5, alcohol influx and Vietnam safeguard tariff https://biothai.net/policy/9046
- EPHA, “The unhealthy side effects of CETA” (Movendi International and EPHA policy brief) https://epha.org/the-unhealthy-side-effects-of-ceta/
- Movendi International and partners, independent study on TTIP, international trade law and health systems https://movendi.ngo/science-digest/investigating-ttip-international-trade-law-health-systems-public-health/
- EPHA, joint NGO statement on health, sustainability and trade agreements https://epha.org/joint-ngo-statement-health-sustainability-trade-agreements/
