Polish whisky drinkers urge leaders to adopt spirit of EU and lower duty taxes

"Simple Simon", as it is called in the bars and clubs of Warsaw, is popular among young wealthy Poles. To Britons, it is better known as Scotch.

After centuries of knocking back vodka to keep out thewinter cold, Poland is embracing a new foreign fire water as it prepares for a triumphal entry to the European Union in 2004. Instead of ordering Wyborowa or Zubrowska, the two biggest names in Polish vodka, hard-drinking Europhiles from Krakow to Lodz are asking for a Johnnie Walker, the most popular whisky in Poland.

But despite the euphoria generated by this month's Copenhagen summit, a row is in full swing over whether EU enlargement will give 38.5 million Poles access to cheaper booze and let Britain's £2.3bn whisky industry sell it to them.

As Campbell Evans, of the Scotch Whisky Association, puts it: "This is about import duties. The expansion of the EU is a tremendous opportunity to tap into markets that have a tradition of drinking spirits. Most other new member states have committed themselves to taking down import duty barriers. But we have yet to see a serious indication from Poland that it will do so before accession."

The distillers' gripe is over duties ranging from 75 per cent to 268 per cent on imported spirits. A bottle of imported whisky in a supermarket in Warsaw costs 100 zlotys (about £16), compared with 25 zlotys (£4) for a bottle of local vodka. Scotch accounts for only 0.27 per cent of the 36 million bottles of spirits sold each year, despite its cachet among Poland's Europhile glitterati.

For an industry that last year had global exports worth £2.29bn and accounts for 20 per cent of all British food and drink sold abroad, the failure to break into such a vast market is frustrating. Scotch sales in Poland last year were worth £1.7m, compared with £4.5m in the Czech Republic, a country with barely a quarter of the population. In Spain, the biggest whisky export market, the figure was £296m.

Donald Blair, a consultant in Warsaw for importers of spirits, said: "Poland accounts for about 50 per cent of the population that will join the EU in 2004, but it has had little exposure to these brands. Drinks like whisky are regularly consumed by about 1 per cent of the population and the tariff barriers are responsible for a huge amount of smuggling. It is best for all if they are removed."

In October, the EU signed a deal with the Polish government to cut its import tariffs by a third for the first 3,000 tonnes of spirit imported from within the EU every year. By May 2004, all such tariffs will have to be removed. Countries such as Hungary, which charges 47.6 per cent on imports, and Lithuania (15 per cent to 23 per cent) have said they will come into line but Poland is dragging its heels amid dark mutterings of protectionism.

Sales of vodka – the national drink used by Lech Walesa to toast the fall of Communism in 1989 – have dropped sharply as Poles turn to beer, wine and imported spirits, while the state struggles to make good on its proposal to privatise all 21 registered vodka distillers.

Piotr Kozerski, economics counsellor at the Polish embassy in London, said: "We are not saying never with regard to the import duties and we accept that they must eventually go. But it is something we have to do gradually."

Even when the tariffs are finally lifted in a country with a million alcoholics and estimated loss of 3.75 per cent of gross domestic product to alcohol abuse, Poland might not be quite the marketing opportunity that the whisky men hope. Since the early 1990s, it has operated an absolute ban on advertisements for any type of alcohol.