Interesting news this morning with a decision by the EU to take Canada to task for unfair tax practices:

In the May 2 federal budget, the Tories announced tax relief for beer and wine makers -- the sort of small-business vote the Conservatives like to court -- and on June 30 they announced they were enriching the breaks. But the excise tax relief did not apply to EU products or other foreign-made beer and wine.

I am for anything that reduces and more fairly distributes the tax burden throughout all products so this one will be interesting to watch. Odd, though, that at the same time the EU is saying it is being treated unfairly through unbalanced taxation it is having an internal dispute over duties:

Attempts by EU finance ministers to reform alcohol taxes have been thwarted by opposition from the Czech Republic. The 4.5% proposed minimum duty on alcohol was vetoed by the Czech Republic, marking the second attempt in a month to change duties on alcohol. The Czech Republic, a big producer and consumer of beer, said the tax - which applies to beer and port but not wine - would unfairly help wine producers..."It is clear there is competition between wine and beer. We don't agree with a disadvantage for a typical Czech product like beer," said Czech finance minister Vlastimil Tlusty. The proposed 4.5% alcohol tax was far lower than the initial European Commission suggestion of 31%. Wine has been absent from the list of alcoholic goods to be taxed, following requests from France, among others, and it is expected that any move to set a minimum duty on wine would elicit further opposition.

For a more in depth view on taxation of beer in the EU nations, have a look at this recent report in .pdf entitled "Alcohol: Tax, Price and Public Health" - also interesting (isn't everything interesting?) to note that in in beer drinking countries like Belgium and Ireland, wine is taxed more heavily while in wine countries like France and Hungary the opposite is true.