Written question – Mandatory labelling of ingredients and alcoholic beverages – P-004004/2025

Priority question for written answer  P-004004/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Yvan Verougstraete (Renew)

In March 2017, after calling for full transparency, the Commission adopted a report regarding the mandatory labelling of the list of ingredients and the nutrition declaration of alcoholic beverages.

However, since 2018, the Commission has undermined that transparency by tolerating a situation where wines provide information ‘off-label’, allowing certain mandatory information to be omitted from the label and made accessible via a QR code.

• 1.How does the Commission justify such backsliding in the quest for transparency about the contents of alcoholic beverages?
• 2.Does it not consider that, in line with Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, consumers should be able to access essential information (additives, pesticides, sugar content, etc.) on the label itself, and only have to consult a QR code for additional information, as is already the case for non-alcoholic food producers, as well as some winemakers?
• 3.Should it not take into account the views expressed by its own Health Commissioner at the time, as well as those of the World Health Organization, the Joint Research Centre and many other organisations, who have warned about the danger of concealing such information, as well as about the drawbacks of making essential (not secondary) information accessible only via a QR code, not to mention that this de facto excludes those who are unable to scan the QR code, and thus deprives them of access to information?

Submitted: 13.10.2025