Brand on bottles will rid the Russian market of illegal alcohol

The Federation Council is awaiting a decision from the State Duma on a bill on the introduction of an identifier stamp on consumer packaging made of glass produced in Russia, including for strong alcohol. As the first deputy chairman of the Federation Council committee on budget and financial markets, Sergei Ryabukhin, explained to FAN, this measure will determine the manufacturer of bottles in which counterfeit alcohol is sold and will protect the domestic market of glass container manufacturers from foreign products.

The corresponding normative act was submitted to the lower house of parliament. The authors of the bill propose to supplement federal law No. 381 with a norm on the obligation to apply a unique identifier mark on all glass consumer containers produced in the Russian Federation.

“We want this issue to be considered by the deputies as soon as possible,” said Senator Ryabukhin. - For 4.5 years of struggle against illegal strong alcohol, we have achieved that out of 50% of products that were produced clandestinely, now only 28-30% remain. And this is mainly due to the production of medical alcohol. "

It is important that all 26 packaging factories understand social responsibility regarding the legalization of the market and the withdrawal of production from the shadow zone, the FAN interlocutor added.

Two sectoral GOSTs specify the need for labeling bottles with an imprint of an enterprise's trademark. Federal Law No. 171 also contains a ban on the supply of alcoholic beverages in packaging without a bottle stamp. But manufacturers of glass consumer containers are not motivated to put a stamp on all containers, some of which can be ordered by illegal producers of alcoholic beverages. This is stated in the explanatory note to the bill. Today only alcohol producers bear responsibility for illegal products.

“When we seize counterfeit products, we have to handle this bottle in the laboratory of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - they will do an analysis and still find out who made it. But it takes a lot of time to bring the manufacturer to justice, ”Ryabukhin explained.

The legislative initiative will make it possible to apply the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to violators. Consumer packaging without appropriate labeling will be confiscated under the current article 15.12 of the Administrative Code.

“It is becoming clear that both the alcohol producer has responsibility for counterfeit and the glass container manufacturer,” Ryabukhin is sure.

In addition to the application of the identifier stamp, the bill provides for a ban on the production and circulation of strong alcoholic beverages in polymer consumer containers. According to the chairman of the commission of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on entrepreneurship in the production and circulation of ethyl alcohol, alcoholic and alcohol-containing products, Alexander Romanov, the bill should be supported "with hands and feet." True, the ban on the use of plastic containers, which is also mentioned in the document, he considers senseless.

“Of course, illegal sellers have become insolent - on the Internet you can find, under the guise of well-known brands, the sale of alcohol, even in fifty-liter plastic bottles. But experience shows that illegal immigrants do not sell containers from 0.05 to 0.2 liters, it is unprofitable. But due to this restriction, some manufacturers of such containers may incur losses, ”explained Romanov FAN.

He added that the Chamber of Commerce and Industry will prepare appropriate proposals on this issue for the State Duma deputies.

Artem Kiryanov, first deputy chairman of the commission of the Public Chamber of Russia for the examination of socially significant bills, told FAN that such an initiative as labeling glass containers should not cause any misunderstanding.

“It is becoming more and more difficult for law enforcement agencies to work, because earlier it was possible to identify illegal alcohol, counterfeits, surrogate through retail chains. Now the criminals who are dealing with this market are selling very large volumes via the Internet, ”Kiryanov said.

He stressed that this is an important accompanying question - how to put things in order with the sale of illegal strong alcohol on the Internet.

It is known from the explanatory note to the bill that it is planned to enter information about the unique mark of each glass manufacturer in the federal register of designations before the start of bottle production, which will allow identifying the manufacturer of glass containers.

The rules for applying the designation, as well as the procedure for maintaining the register of designations will be established by the Government of the Russian Federation.

Source: https://riafan.ru/