Wine Law

well. Accordingly, the fact that the product to be consumed is an alcoholic beverage cannot diminish the necessary protection that the legal system is obliged to provide to its consumer, because, in first place, he is a consumer and an end user of a product in a legal-commercial relationship in exchange for a price; and second, alcohol consumption has an obvious impact on consumer health. Therefore, in the pages that follow we proceed to analyse the limitations to the freedom of alcohol consumption, and the specific protection of the consumer of alcoholic beverages. II. Limitations on the Freedom of Consumption of Alcohol II.1. Principle of competition and sectoral norms A fact to take into account in the Spanish legal system is the principle of competence that informs the territorial organisation of the State (Title VIII SC). Indeed, the constitutional relationship between the different levels of Administration in the composite State that designs the Spanish Constitution, rests on the principle of competence, following the mechanisms of distribution of powers established by Article 149 SC, the statutes of autonomy, and Law 7/1985, of 2 April, regulating the bases of the local regime (hereinafter LBRL). In effect, Article 149.1 SC lists the powers that are exclusively attributed to the State, so that they are not susceptible of being exercised by other Administrations under penalty of incurring in unconstitutionality or conflict of powers. In turn, Article 147(2) SC – after defining in its first point the autonomy statutes as the basic institutional norm of each Comunidad –, in its point d), demands that its minimum content relate the powers assumed within the framework established in the Constitution and the bases for the transfer of the services corresponding to them 6 . This consideration cannot go unnoticed, because, in practice, it translates into the statutes of autonomy being classified as attribution rules 7 , so that competence cannot be exercised by an Autonomous Community if it has not been attributed to it by the statute of autonomy, which is in the 6 GARCÍA DE ENTERRÍA, E. Estudios sobre autonomías territoriales . Civitas. Madrid, 1985, pp. 119 et seq . 7 CAZORLA PRIERO, L. & ARNALDO ALCUBILLA, E. Temas de derecho constitucional y derecho administrativo. Marcial Pons. Madrid, 1988, p. 208.