Translated material
Until the last drop
They want to overcome the alcohol crisis in Russia with the help of bureaucratic bodies and “people's vodka”
The alcohol crisis, provoked by the authorities’ attempts to control the entire circulation of alcohol in the country , is forcing the state to look for new measures that could alleviate the severity of the situation. This includes a proposal to produce a “state” cheap vodka called “Rosspirtprom” at just over two dollars per bottle, and a project to create a separate state body to control the alcohol market, and the idea of a state monopoly on the production of alcohol. However, all three ideas are equally difficult to implement in practice.Statements by the Volgograd branch of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Rosspirtprom" about the start of production of a federal brand of vodka called "Rosspirtprom", the selling price of which should be equal to the cost of production (53 rubles for half a liter), caused conflicting comments from experts. Even if the retail price of cheap vodka increases by ten rubles, it will still be cheaper than any legal bottle of vodka today, Rosspirtprom assures. On the other hand, in those regions where they drink outright surrogate, the price of a “drink” made from industrial alcohols is much lower, 20-30 rubles. The price of even the cheapest bottle of state vodka will never be able to drop to this level. And if mass poisonings do not stop, then this will be an additional argument in favor of introducing the idea of a state monopoly on the production of alcohol, which is still being considered at the level of the idea.
The word “monopoly” was also heard before the introduction of the Unified State Automated Information System (USAIS) , when it was said that the all-Russian system of control over the circulation of alcohol embodies a somewhat softened idea of the state monopoly on alcohol. As supporters of the introduction of the Unified State Automated Information System argued then, this would control the movement of every drop of alcohol. However, this measure clearly did not help stabilize the situation.
After President Vladimir Putin made a statement in the summer of 2005 about the need to introduce an alcohol monopoly to combat the deaths of people from low-quality counterfeit vodka, very quickly, within a few months, amendments were prepared and immediately adopted, seriously tightening the circulation of alcohol. From January 2006, a new licensing procedure came into effect, and from July 1, the Unified State Automated Information System was supposed to be operational at all enterprises. Total control over every drop, as time has shown, failed, and the government began to try to remember the well-forgotten past.
The possibility of creating a federal government enterprise to exercise the monopoly right to purchase and supply alcohol and a proposal for a state monopoly on the entire turnover of alcohol, including its production, are being discussed again. Increasingly, in the corridors of power they are remembering that the state monopoly on alcohol is by no means a Russian invention. It exists in Belarus, Bulgaria, Norway, and partially in Canada, Sweden, and Finland.
According to the Committee on Economic Policy, Entrepreneurship and Tourism of the State Duma, it is advisable to grant the right to produce alcohol only to state-owned enterprises or private ones in which the state has a controlling stake. According to the recently appointed chairman of the committee, Evgeniy Fedorov, such measures could be introduced as early as 2008-2009. The same idea was discussed at the beginning of this week at the presidium of the United Russia faction and received approval.
The Economic Policy Committee is also considering another form of monopoly, which would involve the creation of a federal body to control the alcohol market, which would issue permits to distilleries to purchase alcohol. Today, the production and circulation of alcohol and alcohol-containing products is controlled by several departments. These are the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the Ministry of Finance, the federal tax and customs services, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rospotrebnadzor. Unity of command in this area, according to the authors of the amendments to the law on the production and circulation of alcohol, will fill the legal gap when no one is personally responsible for what is happening. According to the authors of the amendments, in order to purchase alcohol for production, distilleries will have to send a purchase application to the authorized body. The government may also gain the right to approve minimum selling, wholesale and retail prices for alcoholic beverages sold in the country. The amendments could be considered by the lower house in early December. Deputies, however, have not yet decided which department to transfer the sole right to coordinate the alcohol industry.
Both one and the other proposal to introduce additional control measures will primarily result in a new redistribution of the market and disruptions in retail supply. This country has already gone through this, which again brought to life in the Russian provinces the problem of mass consumption of poisonous industrial alcohols, almost forgotten since the days of Gorbachev-Ligachev’s “prohibition law”.