Does Czechia export beer to Russia despite geopolitical tensions?
Recent reports have indicated that by the end of October last year, alcoholic beverages worth over CZK 924 million had been exported from Czechia to Russia over the course of ten months, with beer making up the largest share at CZK 820 million. But what do we truly know about Czech beer exports to Russia?
According to the Czech Statistical Office, breweries continue to export large sums to Russia. Exporters have listed Russia as the country of destination, because if the goods came to Russia from another country, it is not possible to trace this from the foreign trade data. Secretary General of the Czech Beer and Malt Association Tomáš Slunečko rejects the claims, stressing that it’s probable that this estimate constitutes re-exporting.
"No, I strongly reject this in any case. All of our member breweries that declared after the start of the aggression against Ukraine that they would not export to Russia are, in fact, not exporting to Russia. Anything that is exported to Russia and declared on the customs administration website is certainly not from our member breweries.”
Slunečko insists that the Czech Statistical Office’s estimates most likely account for microbreweries contributing to a portion of this amount.
“These are external breweries, and we don’t really keep statistics on them. As I mentioned, we made inquiries with our member breweries regarding this matter when the information came in, and not one of them told us that they were exporting anything to Russia.”
There are 50 breweries in Czechia and half of them are members of Slunečko’s association. Slunečko acknowledges that “You can never be sure,” but that he trusts the accounts of exports in order to estimate whether they indeed export to Russia.
The Russian agency RIA Novosti claimed that last year, the most beer that was exported to Russia came from the Germans and Czechs. Slunečko rejected these claims, arguing that they are fabrications.
“For me, this is a matter of Russian propaganda, because it can’t be true, surely. In my opinion, the breweries sell it somewhere, and we cannot control what happens to the beer once it’s sold. Therefore, if someone buys it from another country, which then exports it to Russia, that is unfortunately beyond our control.”
Slunečko further insists that it is not the association’s responsibility to direct the exports of each brewery; instead, it is their responsibility to consider the domestic or transnational restrictions.
“I have their assurances. That's good enough for me,” the secretary general says.
