End to beer tie 'a near impossibility', warns CAMRA

The chances of the beer tie being abolished are "nigh on impossible", Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) boss Mike Benner has warned.

Benner, speaking exclusively to The Publican​, said he does not expect a complete end to the tie because such a move would require a huge change to European law.

"An end to the tie would require huge amendments to the Treaty of Rome [now known as the EU treaty]. What is needed here is not the removal of the tie but severe reform," he added.

Anti-beer tie campaign group Fair Pint and the GMB union have lobbied European Union politicians to ensure that special Block Exemption Regulations (BER) for the pub trade, which allow the operation of special restrictive agreements, like the beer tie, are not reinstated when they come up for review in May 2010.

However, according to Jonathan Mail, head of policy and public affairs at CAMRA, even if the BER was lifted it would not lead to a total removal of the tie.

"The beer tie could continue even if the block exemption was removed. The only difference is the brewers and pubcos would have to demonstrate to the EU Commission how their agreements complied with article 81 of the EU Treaty.

"For small and regional brewers this would be straightforward as they have very low market shares and are therefore unlikely to appreciably restrict competition. This might not be the case for Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns however."

Both Benner's and Mail's comments will come as a blow to the Fair Pint campaign which wants the government to remove the tie from all tenanted and leased pubs.

Steve Corbett, a tied licensee and founder member of Fair Pint, said:

"We want the tie to be removed, because the tie as it currently operates is anti-competitive.

"We believe that just playing around with the current system to make it fairer won't work as the power it gives property interests to exploit their tenants is always going to be open to abuse."