Wine Law

LEGAL PROTECTION OF THE CONSUMER OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES 247 diminish the necessary protection that the legal system is obliged to provide to its consumer, who, after all, is still the end-user of a product in a legal-commercial relationship in exchange for a price. This consumer must be further protected because alcohol consumption can have obvious health impacts. Therefore, in the following pages, the limitations to the freedom of alcohol consumption and the specific protection of the consumer of alcoholic beverages will be analysed. II. LIMITATIONS ON THE FREEDOM OF ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION II.1. Principle of competition and sectoral norms It is noteworthy that, in the Spanish legal system, it is the principle of competence that informs the State’s territorial organisation (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 Government (LBRL in Spanish). In effect, article 149(1) SC lists the powers 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), it 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 means that the statutes of autonomy are classified as attribution rules 7 , and its power cannot be exercised by an Autonomous Community if it has not been attributed to it by the statute of autonomy. This statute takes the form of an organic law and, therefore, is first approved by the autonomous legislative assembly and 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.