Unlike France, the carafe of free tap water in restaurants or bars does not exist across Quiévrain. But that will change as part of the fight against alcoholism.
To drink water in Belgium at the bar or restaurant, you have to order and pay for a bottle of mineral water. However, this could perhaps – one day – change, because within the framework of a federal plan to combat alcoholism, the Minister of Public Health Frank Vandenbroucke wishes to stimulate all establishments which serve alcohol to provide free water by 2025.
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The carafe of free water is a sea serpent that regularly resurfaces in Belgium in the public debate. This possibility immediately clashes with professionals in the sector, represented by the Horeca federation (an acronym for Hotels, Restaurants and Cafés). Offering free tap water would be one more punishment, because the sector is already badly affected economically. “Corporate profitability is on borrowed time because commodities have gone up, there’s been wage escalation lately and of course energy costs have skyrocketed“, sums up Luc Marchal, president of the Horeca-Wallonia federation.
“We could offer the water if we earned enough gross margin, but we need to sell to survive.”
Luc Marchal, Horecaat franceinfo
To fight against alcoholism, Luc Marchal and the Horeca explain that they want to develop the sale of “soft” or non-alcoholic drinks, to compete with beer or wine. It still seems that the idea of free tap water is still progressing in Belgium. In the opinion of Belgians on the terrace, most want this free, sometimes bypassing the purchase of a bottle of water from Spa or Chaudfontaine, market-leading brands: “At the restaurant, I take a bottle with meexplains a Belgian. It costs 5 or 4 euros for a bottle of water, it should be free.”
The influence of powerful lobbies according to associations
More and more places offer free tap water. This is the case, for example, of Sorina Ciucu, in her restaurant in Louvain-la-Neuve, in Wallonia. “It’s a right that everyone should be able to enjoy.launches the restorer. In fact, when we launched it in 2009 in the establishment, I think we were the only ones to do that.
His restaurant is on a menu of 900 establishments that offer free water. A map drawn up by the Free Tap Water collective, which wants to encourage restaurateurs to start this process because of the ecological impact of transporting water and bottling it.
But there are many obstacles, starting with powerful lobbies according to the collective. “We are facing a triple agreementtance Clément Magos, member of the Free Tap Water collective, between a Horeca federation that we consider increasingly unrepresentative of its members, the Federation of soft drinks – Nestlé, Danone, Unilever, Coca Cola – it is not only the friendly little Walloon bottler.
“And finally, it also raises the question of the sellers of beer producers in Belgium. Maybe they also have an interest in that we don’t spontaneously go for something other than alcohol when going to a restaurant. “
Clement Magos, Free Tap Waterat franceinfo
To continue to advance its environmental cause, the association is not against a hybrid solution with a carafe of tap water which would not be free but sold cheaper than mineral water.