Questions and answers relating to the European Court of Justice ruling on minimum pricing of alcohol in December 2015.

What does the ruling mean?
The key message is that minimum pricing is not illegal under EU free trade rules. However, it will only be legal if certain conditions are met as it has been ruled that it would restrict free trade. The most important of those is that the policy achieves additional benefits for public health or imposes fewer barriers to free trade than other available policy options. In other words, imposing a minimum pricing needs to be less restrictive to free trade or more effective in improving public health than simply upping the tax on alcohol. It will now be the task of the Scottish courts to make that judgement based on the available evidence........