Advertising, Alcohol, Estonia, Legislation, Markets and Companies

Just 15% of people are against or rather against the elimination of alcohol advertising; 5% of the respondents did not have a position on this issue. The Prime Minister, however, said that enforcing total advertising ban in Estonia is difficult.

"Alcohol advertising is not totally banned in any European Union country yet. It is purely technically not possible to restrict advertising in all channels. Take for example the Internet, where, about half of the advertising, as estimated by portals located in Estonia, is sold through Google, and such international companies, the jurisdiction of which Estonia might not be able to influence," said Rõivas.

Foundation Healthy Estonia Manager Riina Raudne disagreed with him. "When we look at how it is done with tobacco advertising, we can see that it has been possible to ban tobacco advertising on the internet. You can still view tobacco products on the manufacturers home pages, however, it is not possible to widely advertise it in portals," said Raudne. "And Facebook, Google, such major international portals can show some advertisements on state basis and show others not," she explained.

As to what the new government coalition that is being formed, could do in this sphere, Rõivas said that "there is reason to discuss additional restrictions already this year".

"There is relatively high consensus between parties regarding the alcohol policy and, therefore, it is possible to move forwards constructively with these issues," said the Prime Minister.