Heineken defends logo as apolitical
Who would have thought Heineken would be seen as a symbol of Communist oppression?
That’s what’s happening in Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling party has filed a bill to ban the vintage redstar logo featured on products including the beermaker’s iconic green bottles.
Accusing Amsterdam-based Heineken NV of bullying a small, partly ethnic-hungarian owned brewer in neighbouring Romania after the Dutch company won a patent dispute there, the government in Budapest is pushing for fines and even jail time for anyone selling products featuring totalitarian symbols.
That includes the red star that’s also associated with the Communist regime that ruled Hungary for more than four decades.
‘‘We believe we have to defend every Hungarian brand when someone wants to use its market dominance to squeeze out others,’’ parliamentary leader Lajos Kosa told reporters on Tuesday.
The ruling Fidesz party is also trying to narrow the scope of the bill to ensure products including Converse shoes and San Pellegrino bottled water, which also feature the star, aren’t affected, Kosa said.
Heineken rejected the association that its star is a symbol of communism, saying brewers have used the logo since the Middle Ages. Its points represent beer’s ingredients: water, barley, hops, yeast, and a fifth that comprises the ‘‘magic of brewing’’.
‘‘Naturally, the red Heineken star has no political meaning whatsoever, and we use the same brand symbols across the world, in every market,’’ the company said. ‘‘We … hope and trust that this matter will be resolved soon.’’
Kosa conceded that the bill had caveats and that the party would modify it to protect retailers.
In a 2008 lawsuit, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a red star cannot be understood as exclusively representing communist totalitarian rule.
In 2013, the Hungarian Constitutional Court struck down a law that sought to criminalise the use of symbols associated with totalitarian regimes, saying the law was too broad in scope and undermined freedom of speech.
The same year, lawmakers revised the law, making the use of totalitarian symbols a criminal offence only if used with the intent to undermine social peace. –Bloomberg