Home Distiller

I've been bussy for about 1 year to legalize destillation in the Netherlands, it seemed to be hopefull, till last week I recieved a lettre from our finance department.
They say legalisation equel to beer and winemakers is inpossible because of the European rules (91/83/EEG). All EU countries together has to change the rule, and that's not expected.
Mayor sadback! But how is it possible distillation is legal in EU country Hongarya?

Great that you are exploring making it legal, but we carry on regardless. Legality depends on enforcibility. The enforcers have big problems.

Ayay wrote:Great that you are exploring making it legal, but we carry on regardless. Legality depends on enforcibility. The enforcers have big problems.

We all cary on, but I have the opportunity to stand up (I've got the permits, they cannot sue me ) and help my dutch fellow homedistillers. But seems the problem is not Dutch but European

I think that is a cop out by your country. If a new country is admitted into the EU and they had legalized it prior to joining I don't believe the EU would tell them they couldn't do it legally or they wouldn't be admitted.

Nope. Hungary (re) introduced homedistilling only a few years ago. I have a Hungarian lawyer look into it to learn how they did it and will let you know, Henk.

Odin.

Great Odin, this will be interresting, the story contineues

hstuurman wrote:I've been bussy for about 1 year to legalize destillation in the Netherlands, it seemed to be hopefull, till last week I recieved a lettre from our finance department.
They say legalisation equel to beer and winemakers is inpossible because of the European rules (91/83/EEG). All EU countries together has to change the rule, and that's not expected.
Mayor sadback! But how is it possible distillation is legal in EU country Hongarya?

That should be the European Directive 91/83/EEC, Occupational Safety and Health "framework" Directive.
The resume and complete text is here: https://osha.europa.eu/en/legislation/d ... irective/1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
The general normative framework is described here: https://oshwiki.eu/wiki/General_princip ... egislation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

This has nothing to do with home distilling. Even if it contained norms about safety in an industrial distilling environment, it would have nothing to do with home distilling at all.

I just found the content of the EU directive regarding Excise tax on alcohol in Europe.

The normal excise tax for distillates is €550,00 for hectolitre of pure alcohol (100%).
Member nations can reduce this tax to a half, that's obviously €225,00 for hectolitre of pure alcohol.
Member state can legalize the production of distillate for personal consumption.

Hungary approved a law in 2010 which allowed the production up to 50 litres of 86% strenght of Pálinka with total exemption from excise tax. This was challenged in front of the Court of Justice of the EU for being in violation of the European norms, lawsuit C-115/13.
The sentence (pronounced in 2014) says Hungary violated EU laws so Hungary had to reintroduce the excise tax at the halved level of €225,00 per hectolitre of pure alcohol.

That said:

-) it is legal within the current EU framework for Hungary and therefore for any EU country to allow home distillation for personal consumption within the quantity of 50L of pure alcohol per year.

-) it is not legal within the current EU framework to completely exempt the home producer from the excise tax;

-) it is legal within the current EU framework to set the excise tax at €112,50/year for the maximum yearly allowance of 50L of pure alcohol. Supposing one pays the entire sum and produces the entire quantity, a typical 70cl bottle with 40% strenght would pay around €1,50 in excise tax (half the normal level).

Considering that 50L of pure alcohol per year is certainly not a punitive quantity, I would say that the present Hungarian legislation asking to pay a little more than €100,00 per year would be the right "target" to pursue in the Netherlands and in the national legislations in the rest of Europe.

European laws do not prevent any country from legalising personal distilling.

https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/doc ... 0062it.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow for the text of the press communiqué in Italian

Odin wrote:Nope. Hungary (re) introduced homedistilling only a few years ago. I have a Hungarian lawyer look into it to learn how they did it and will let you know, Henk.

Odin.

There are more EU countries where home distilling is legal: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Macedonia and Slovenia. That besides the fact that it is totally accepted practice nearly anywhere east of Munich.

The Finance department's statement is demonstrably untrue.

Given the Netherlands history with other contraband, wouldn't a decriminalization approach work? Something doesn't have to be legal for it to not be illegal, right?

Does the EU have a requirement for how zealous member states must be in collecting taxes? Can't a member country just say, yup, you gotta pay the tax, and institute no way to go about collecting it? The EU doesn't have it's own police force that would go from village to village checking every jug for proof of taxation, does it?

I could go for a little Dutch Action myself.

(I cannot be the only person to think this)

Oh well.

Here in uk - we can distil - provided we register for tax - BUT th eminimum still size to register is 400 Gallons (Imperial)

That is imprctaical of course for the likes of us - but it does give an inkling of the sort of capacity they would start to get interested in.

With every home brew shop selling stills - clearly, "enforcement" is not regarded as a priority, provided we are not selling !

Perhaps the "brexit" situation may =have yet another advantage ?

How about "Nether-exit "?

I doubt hstuurman knows his stuff.

I have to say I haven't read through all that Beaurocrat Garbage - They are paid to write it - I'd have to read it FoC !

It does seem to be based on "Elf an' Safety" tho' and clearly "They" can't go legalising people "wiv no training" going about setting fire to themselves. BUT "They" can leave it illegal and then plead "Well they were acting illegally" If by some odd quirk of fate some doombrain manages to blow themselves up.

Ok then another pointer - to " Don't pubicise" it too much and "Don't Sell !"

It doesn't seem in reality that they care much at all - just can't officially condone it !

I'm actually ok with that !

Birrofilo wrote: ...................
-) it is legal within the current EU framework for Hungary and therefore for any EU country to allow home distillation for personal consumption within the quantity of 50L of pure alcohol per year.

..........

That's a litre a week !

So a half bottle of 40% an evening !

SO the missus would drink about 2/3 of that

SO where's mine ?

MarcoF wrote: There are more EU countries where home distilling is legal: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Macedonia and Slovenia. That besides the fact that it is totally accepted practice nearly anywhere east of Munich.

Do you have any resource that I can peruse about that?
For what I know, in France the situation is like in Italy and in the Netherlands: there isn't the intention to explicitly legalize it for some reason (tax, safety, opposition of lobbies), but it is very currently produced and tolerated, I'm sure in Italy in a small centre the priest can offer moonshine to the local Carabiniere without problems

For what I knew, only Russia and New Zealand make home distilling legal and free. Austria does as well but for tiny quantities.

Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Slovenia used to belong to the Eastern Block and maybe they followed the Russian lead in this matter
Maybe they are in compliance with EU rules on excise tax because they had this legislation before entering the EU and it does not require harmonization.

Macedonia is not in the EU but it is interesting the situation there as well. Any source of information you can link would be welcome.

EDIT: I did a bit of search, see below.

I found this about Bulgaria: https://www.vagabond.bg/travel/high-bea ... akiya.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
At the end of the article is says that entrance into the EU bought a yearly limit of 40 lt of distillate free of tax. They seem not to consider that sufficient, though... (those articles are often imprecise and written by people with no specific knowledge. The limit is probably expressed as pure alcohol, so 40lt would amount to 100 litres or so).

Another article about Bulgaria, this is interesting stuff:
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/worl ... garia.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Well, it is legal but it is levied, but the levy is probably not enforced at all.

Bulgaria has "village stills" and a huge number of home stills. In another source I read the Government is planning to institute official records of stills. I doubt that will change much.
Bulgaria is also the country in Europe with the lowest pro capite income and setting the excise tax in absolute Euro term is certainly very unfair.

What this shows is that all EU countries are subject to the same basic principles regarding home distilling and excise tax. Home distilling can be allowed (as Bulgaria and Hungary do) but the excise tax, which can be reduced, cannot be set to zero by law.

So there is a lot of moonshining as as an open secret all over the EU, tolerated for domestic consumption.

In Germany you can have a still with a boiler of 0,5 liter and there are some rules for distilling your own fruit or grain when you are a farmer (Stoffbesitzer). In Austria the still can be even larger, 2 liters if my memory serves me well.

Birrofilo wrote:

MarcoF wrote: There are more EU countries where home distilling is legal: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Macedonia and Slovenia. That besides the fact that it is totally accepted practice nearly anywhere east of Munich.

Do you have any resource that I can peruse about that?

Got most off a wikipedia page that I can't find again atm . First hand info about France though: if you own an orchard you are allowed to distill at home. I have orchard-owning family there.