The Government would look into the regulation of the operation of breweries, and the relationship between large companies and smaller Hungarian players as well as businesses in the catering industry, János Lázár, the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office said on Thursday in Hódmezővásárhely.
It is well worth scrutinising the entire framework of regulation after what happened to Igazi Csíki Sör (The Real Csík Beer): a multinational corporation „is about to trample over” a small and vulnerable player.
This dispute is less about beer, and much more about our Hungarian identity, Mr Lázár stated, adding that he is therefore „determined to go all the way” in the struggle.
The politician said: the question is what chances small, Hungarian-owned breweries making craft beers have against the four big breweries operating in the country which control the market. In his view, businesses in the catering industry are at the mercy of the big market players.
An important proposal in this context is that businesses should not be allowed to resort to just any means of advertising they prefer in commercial distribution, he said.
Hungary respects the freedom of opinion and expression, Mr Lázár stressed. He said, however, that he finds it unacceptable that a company uses symbols that violate the human dignity of others for commercial, profit-making purposes. In the fifties, Heineken changed the colour of the star on its beer bottles to white on account of the political meaning of the symbol, and has only used the red star once again since the nineties, the Minister reiterated.
The Minister also said that, according to news reports, there is a company which uses genetically engineered yeast strains – which are no longer authorised in Germany – in order to accelerate the production of beer.
The head of the Prime Minister’s Office said it is shocking that multinational corporations sell products of inferior quality in Hungary compared with Western-Europe. The minimum expectation would be for these businesses to state on the packaging: the quality of the product offered by them in Hungary is different from that of the products available in the West.
(MTI)
