La plateforme sur l'alcool annonce ses premiers engagements

"We are glad that the process is working and that a large number of commitments have already been made. We hope that the process will result in genuine action that will result in reduction of social harm due to alcohol," said Jamie Fortescue, Director General of the European Spirits Organisation (CEPS). 

"Our organisation's commitments include putting responsible drinking messages to all spirits advertising by 2010," he said, explaining that although this type of message is already well established in most of the EU 15, the concept of corporate social responsibility is still relatively new in the new markets in the EU-10. 

"Other commitments include several drink and drive initiatives, in which we in particular promote the concept of "designated driver" [where one person does not drink and drives people safely home], he said.

"My only concern is the absence of member state representatives in the forum. It is not enough just getting industry and NGOs together as the actions need to be taken at national and local level," added Fortescue.

The European Alcohol Policy Alliance (EuroCare) congratulates DG Sanco for the initiative of the EU Alcohol and Health Forum, and welcomes the 73 commitments made so far by the participating stakeholders. According to the alliance, the majority of commitments, from both the NGOs, industry and retailers (2) are related to the priority area of 'developing information and education programmes'.

"In the first wave of Forum commitments The Brewers of Europe submitted six commitments to local actions on the ground aimed at tackling issues such as drink-driving, underage drinking, binge drinking and drinking during pregnancy," said the voice of European brewing sector, adding that several countries had also committed to further improving self-regulatory systems for commercial communications for beer line with the conclusions for DG Sanco's Advertising Roundtable.

Regarding the priority area of 'self-regulation and better co-operation', which has so far received around 15 commitments from the industry and four from the advertising industry, Eurocare is particularly interested "to see joint action on the part of the alcohol industry and the retailers to enforce age limits". 

It is also looking forward to "the objective evaluation and monitoring of voluntary commitments, and their impact on reducing alcohol related harm", saying the real test of the present industry commitments will be whether those proven to be useful become standard practice." 

Furthermore, the alliance "eagerly awaits the outcomes of the parallel process of the implementation of the strategy on reducing alcohol-related harm in Europe at member state level."