BRATISLAVA, June 11, (WEBNOVINY) — Agriculture Minister Lubomir Jahnatek is convinced that Slovak viticulture needs financial support. He said for SITA news agency that without financial support, its revitalization is impossible. However, financial support is not possible now, because Slovakia does not have the money so that in addition to the direct and indirect state subsidies for agriculture, it could set aside some extra financial package for wine producers.
According to Jahnatek, Slovakia imports sixty percent of wine that is consumed here. Slovak winemakers are losing the game because of their prices, as quality of their wine is good. Imported wines have a much lower quality. As a cure, Minister Jahnatek proposes to raise for everyone in a single step the excise duty to a certain level. „I do not want to speculate now on the percentage, but let’s say a 10-percent excise tax would be introduced that also importers will have to pay. For the forty percent of domestic wines, meaning wine produced from grapes grown in Slovakia, the 10 percent would be returned through some state aid instrument,“ he said, and added that through the Ministry of Agriculture he could find mechanisms to return the collected excise tax into, for example, revitalization of vineyards. Remaining in the state budget would be the resources it so needs from collected excise tax from the 60 percent of imported wines.
The minister is not concerned that wine sales would be harmed after an increase of the excise tax, because consumers would not have a chance to buy some other wine. He does not fear either that Slovaks would stop drinking. „They would not stop drinking. We have raised the excise tax on beer and hard liquor any number of times and people are still drinking,“ he said.
SITA