Policy Sections
Mini Sections
A Commission funded report on alcohol in Europe suggests that alcohol products should carry warnings on the harmful effects of it. The industry opposes such measures.
The EU is the heaviest drinking region of the world and the economic role of the alcoholic drinks industry and the alcohol excise duties is considerable in many EU member states.
Alcohol is also a health determinant, responsible for 7.4% of all disability and premature death in the EU.
The Commission is currently collecting information on alcohol and health, to feed in its thinking and drafting of a Communication on Alcohol and Health, expected to be published in September 2006.
, conducted by the Institute of Alcohol Studies in London gives an overview of European alcohol policies, the Europeans' alcohol use and alcohol's economic impact.
The report's public health conclusions
stress that alcohol policy does not need to affect the role that alcohol plays in Europe's economy. Review of existing studies show that the total tangible cost of alcohol to EU amounted to 1.3% of GDP in 2003, equivalent of the burden caused by tobacco. Costs come from ill health caused by alcohol, lost productivity through absenteeism, unemployment and lost working years through premature death. The report states that over 10% of youth female mortality and around 25% of youth male mortality are due to alcohol.
The report argues that many aspects of drinking are much more similar across Europe than commonly believed. Especially adolescent binge drinking has increased in most countries in the 1990s. Around 44% of alcohol is consumed in form of beer, 34% in form of wine and 23% in spirits.
Among the recommendations
to reduce harmful drinking is establishment of broad educational programmes, from early childhood on, to inform young people of the consequences of alcohol consumption on health, family and society.
The report suggests also that containers of alcoholic products should carry warnings describing the harmful effects of alcohol and recommends restrictions on alcohol product packaging and labelling, to avoid false impression about products' characteristics and make them less appealing to minors.
The EU may not have competence on health issues, but it managed to impose EU-wide health warnings
on packages of cigarrette.
EFRD, the European Forum for Responsible Drinking, alliance of Europe's leading spirits companies, challenges some of the arguments and statistics presented in the 'Alcohol in Europe' report. The report "is based essentially on Anglo-Saxon science, ignoring research on southern drinking cultures. It fails to take account of the cultural and regional diversity of drinking behaviour in Europe. The conclusion that patterns of drinking across Europe are essentially similar is a false assumption on which to base strategy.
EFRD advocates a targeted approach to prevention and education. "There is no 'one size fits all' panacea to reduce alcohol-related harm," states a EFRD press release. The forum does not believe, either, that restrictions on alcohol advertising, as called for in the report, are an effective way to reduce harmful drinking behaviour.
The European Spirits Organisation (CEPS) fully supports initiatives to better inform consumers about the dangers of irresponsible consumption of spirits drinks. CEPS questions, however, whether warning labels are the most effective way to communicate on these dangers.
[FR]
(January 2005)
(5 May 2006)
(September 2005)
(September 2005)
(1 December 2004)
(2001)
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
France
Hungary
Poland
Romania
Slovakia
Turkey
Del.icio.us
Digg It
Technorati
Europeans challenge Europe