A powerful alliance of anti-pubco campaigners is looking to Europe for a new front in their battle to break the beer tie.
Fair Pint and the Federation of Small Businesses are to lobby MEPs and EU officials, who will re-examine the tie early next year. And the GMB is to urge Gordon Brown to push for action in Brussels when it meets the PM at the GMB's conference.
Meanwhile the Campaign for Real Ale is to make a "super complaint", forcing the Office of Fair Trading to choose whether to probe the tie. The OFT will have 90 days to respond. Its options include a full market study or taking no action.
Fair Pint opposes the OFT route, believing it would prejudice a Government referral to the Competition Commission.
The focus for Fair Pint, FSB and GMB will be the EU Directorate General for Competition, which will decide whether to renew a series of opt-outs — known as block exemptions — from European competition law. The beer tie is an area up for review.
The block exemption, last renewed in 1997, expires in the first half of 2010. The EU will consider whether the status quo is anti-competitive, particularly if it denies producers access to market.
Campaigners say the Business & Enterprise Committee's damning report on pubcos provides new scope for action in Brussels. Fair Pint said it's "an opportunity for licensees in the UK to make a strong case to the European Commission as to why the tie in the UK should not be allowed to continue.
"The European Commission has received complaints in the past about the situation in the UK and we expect this review will not simply be rubber-stamped, as perhaps some pubco and brewery executives hope or expect."
Robert Humphreys, secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group at Westminster and its sister group in the European Parliament, said the beer tie might receive greater focus in light of the Bec report. However, he said Brussels would "probably rely" on results of any probe carried out in the UK. The Bec wants the Competition Commission to investigate, but the UK Government will decide if it goes ahead.
A spokesman for Fair Pint said: "We have instructed competition lawyers to advise Fair Pint in advance of 2010 and we will be submitting a complaint to Europe [along with the FSB] in due course, underpinned by detailed evidence to support our view that the tie is no longer fit for purpose."
Independent Family Brewers of Britain chairman Paul Wells said he was "optimistic" the EU would reach the same conclusion as last time from the point of view of regional family brewers with tied estates. The EU found family brewers are "de minimis" — too small to be a concern to competition.
British Beer & Pub Association spokesman Mark Hastings said: "We are fully prepared for the process that will kick off next year."