RESOLUTION

RESOLUTION RESOLUTION on Excise Tax and on Trade in Alcohol The Baltic Assembly, taking into account that the revenue from the alcohol excise tax comprises a considerable part of the budgets of most states, including Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, aware that drastic and uncoordinated among the states changing of the excise tax promotes smuggling and distribution of illicit alcohol and that this may considerably complicate the implementation of the budgets of our states, admitting that the police and other law-enforcement bodies alone are unable to root out or prevent the negative phenomena that adversely affect the legal order, people’s health and economy of the states, recommends the authorities of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to plan to change the alcohol excise tax moderately, seeking an approximately equal rate of the alcohol excise tax in the Baltic countries, so that changing of the excise tax would not have an adverse effect on the legal production and lawful trade, calls on the Baltic Council of Ministers to discuss the possibility of applying approximately equal alcohol excise rate levels and change dynamics. Tallinn, November 28, 1998