Across Europe, economies are stagnat-ing and unemployment is climbing. Reason enough, you might think, to hit the bottle. Europeans put away over nine litres of alcohol a year per person, twice the global average. The European Commission has declared that alcohol is a "key public-health and social concern". Yet in most big eu countries drinking is in decline. In France and Italy the average adult drinks over a third less than he or she did 30 years ago. Germans and Spaniards are also drying out quickly (see chart above). Alcohol consumption has likewise fallen in most of eastern Europe in recent decades.
展开▼
