commissioned by the federation of Finnish
some amounts of Alcohol to Finland”, says
Commerce, 84 percent of the people over
Ahmed. “sometimes I sell the alcohol from
18 living in southern Finland have visited
to friends in Finland, because I get more
Estonia in order to buy alcohol, and the
money than I paid for it.” Ahmed thinks that
number continues to increase. The survey
the new law about bringing alcohol
also shows that the largest number of
mentioned above does help lower the
people who make trips to Estonia for
amounts brought to Finland from Estonia,
alcohol are men between the ages of 55
because one person is no longer aloud to
and 65.
bring that much.
Erik Dannbäck,
Not only is the
who is the head of the
amount of alcohol a
it is hard to state the exact problem here, but this is
custom control, says
that “it is hard to state
also a question of
amount of alcohol that is
the exact amount of
being brought from Estonia, economics for both Finland
alcohol that is being
and Estonia. According to
but it is visibly increasing
brought from Estonia,
the same survey, last year
and getting wilder.
but it is visibly
Finns brought 28.5 liters of
increasing and getting
alcohol from Estonia. If the
wilder.” A law was
same amount had been
made last year ,which states that you can
bought in Finland, the state would have
only bring alcohol back to Finland from
received approximately 300 million euros.
abroad if it is only for yourself, or as a
Now that part of alcohol taxes goes to
present, but Dannbäck believes that the
Estonia, and a portion of that money is
alcohol still gets sold all around Finland.
used for example to fund Estonian
This is why customs react to people
literature and cultural activities. In addition
to these tax losses that Finland faces, the
“alcohol rally” may also cause social
problems; for example the alcohol being
sold to underage kids. Merja Sandell from
the Ministry of Finances states that it is
much more difficult to control the selling of
alcohol that is brought from abroad.
The last time the alcohol has been
raised was earlier this year, when there
was an increase in even over 8% in taxes
for some alcholic drinks. The alcohol taxes
“Super Alko”, a popular alcohol shop in Tallinn
in Finland are the highest of all the
countries in the European Union.
bringing huge amounts of alcohol who are
claiming that it is for themselves, but
according to customs this law hasn’t had
any visible effects on the amount of
alcohol brought back from Estonia so far.
Ahmed, 19, from Helsinki says that he
visits Estonia approximately 3 times a
year. “I usually visit Estonia with a group of
friends just for fun. We usually bring back
“
”