The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on countries to strengthen taxes on alcoholic and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) to safeguard public health.

Alcohol has become more affordable or has not changed in price in most countries since 2022, while many SSBs such as fruit juices and ready-to-drink coffees and teas have escaped taxation.

There is currently no single, European Union-wide tax level for SSB, meaning that taxes are imposed nationally. As of 2024, 14 EU member states had introduced taxes for SSBs, including Netherlands, France, Ireland, Hungary, and Romania. 

While the EU has a harmonized legal framework for minimum taxation on alcohol that allows countries to set higher rates at the national level, it has not changed since 1992. Furthermore, the EU taxes wine at a minimum rate of 0%, meaning that wine is left untaxed in 21 European countries. 

“We have no information on whether EU alcohol taxes will be raised,” Carina Ferreira-Borges, PhD, WHO/Europe Regional Advisor on Alcohol, Illicit Drugs, and Prison Health, told Medscape News Europe.

The European Commission (EC) will set up a database of taxes or levies already in force in member states and establish a network of authorities to coordinate efforts to tax unhealthy food, a spokesperson told Medscape News Europe. 

The EC neither seeks to penalize producers or consumers nor to tell people what to eat or drink, the spokesperson stressed. Rather, it intends to encourage healthier food choices. 

WHO Efforts

The WHO has dubbed alcohol and SSB taxes a “triple-win strategy” that improves public health while reducing healthcare costs, generating government revenue, and contributing to health equity. 

Research supports this assessment. A 2024 umbrella review that examined 50 reviews found that increases in alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSB prices are consistently linked to lower demand for these products. These increases also can be expected to increase tax revenue. 

Ferreira-Borges added that the WHO/Europe has conducted in-depth case studies from Germany, Portugal, and Georgia to model the impact of higher taxes on alcohol under different policy scenarios. The case study of Germany “highlights that in countries where alcohol is highly affordable, taxation remains one of the fastest and most effective levers to reduce harm at population level,” she said. 

Portugal and Georgia, meanwhile, show how no region is too “low-risk” to benefit from stronger alcohol pricing policies and that taxation can be applied successfully in contexts beyond Western Europe, she added. 

To encourage increased taxation, the WHO has launched its 3 by 35 Initiative, which aims to raise the real prices of tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks by at least 50% by 2035 via tax increases. 

Political and Commercial Obstacles 

The main obstacles to increasing taxes on alcoholic and sugary beverages are often political and commercial, rather than technical, said Ferreira-Borges. “The most consistent barrier is industry opposition,” she said. Other observers fear that higher taxes will be undermined by cross-border trade or informal markets. 

“Modeling from Georgia demonstrates that taxation works even where alcohol is sometimes sold and consumed outside of official regulation. But this evidence is not limited to modeling,” she explained, “Lithuania provides real-world proof: Following substantial alcohol tax increases as part of a broader policy package, the country experienced rapid declines in alcohol consumption and alcohol-attributable mortality.” 

General financial concerns may also present obstacles to introducing higher taxes. On this topic, Medscape News Europe spoke with Petra Petrová, PhD, treasurer of the Department of Biomedical Technology at Czech Technical University in Prague. While the Czech Republic has had conversations about taxing SSBs, no legislation has been enacted yet, she said. 

Reasons for this, she explained, include “political sensitivity around introducing new targeted taxes, competing fiscal policy priorities, and the fact that health-motivated taxation has so far not been a dominant instrument in Czech public finance.” 

Attitudes toward taxing alcohol in the Czech Republic are cautious. “Policy discussions tend to focus on spirits, and to some extent beer, rather than wine. Wine is widely perceived as a culturally embedded product and is often viewed as less harmful compared to other alcoholic beverages, which reduces political willingness to reconsider its tax treatment,” Pavel Semerád, vice-rector and head of the Center for Accounting and Taxation at STING University in Brno, told Medscape News Europe. 

Some argue, however, that countries shouldn’t wait to increase taxation on alcoholic and sugary beverages. “Voluntary industry pledges have repeatedly failed to produce comparable or sustained public health effects. There is, therefore, little empirical basis for continued policy hesitation,” Anna Leibinger, PhD candidate and research assistant team leader in public health and nutrition at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, told Medscape News Europe. 

By itself, increasing taxes solves just one part of the problem, she added. The etiology of conditions such as obesity and diabetes “is complex and deeply embedded in broader dietary patterns, socioeconomic conditions, and the built and food environments, requiring more comprehensive and coordinated policy action,” she concluded. 

Petrová, Semerád, and Leibinger reported no financial conflicts of interest. 

Annie Lennon is a medical journalist. Her writing appears on Medscape, WebMD, and Medical News Today, among other outlets.