New forum aims to tackle alcohol abuse

The European Commssioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Markos Kyprianou, will call for a new forum on ­alcohol and health as part of the forthcoming strategy to combat the harmful effects of ­drinking, to be approved by the Commission later this month.

But Kyprianou will not propose EU-wide changes to the alcohol taxation ­systems or pan-European labelling rules, despite ­reports that he was ­considering far-reaching legislative changes.

According to a draft of the communication on a "co-ordinated European approach towards the harmful effects of alcohol", seen by European Voice, Kyprianou will propose a forum on alcohol and health based on the ­existing EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, which was set up to devise ways to tackle the EU’s growing obesity problem.

Initial reports about ­early drafts of the ­document suggested that the Commission was to propose increasing alcohol taxes, tougher advertising laws and health warnings on drinks bottles.

But the final draft is ­expected to suggest few concrete measures and recommend further discus­sion among member states, amid fears that ­Europe-wide changes to tax and marketing rules on health grounds would breach the EU treaty.

Alan Butler of the ­European Forum for Res­ponsible Drinking (EFRD), which is funded by drinks companies such as Bacardi-Martini, Diageo and ­Pernod-Ricard, said his group would prefer moves to discourage heavy drinking through education and information campaigns. "We need to target drunkenness, not drinking per se," he said, arguing that average alcohol ­consumption in Europe was falling.

"We need to look at ways to help the 6% of people the WHO [World Health Organisation] estimates misuse alcohol and not penalise the other 94%. Measures to restrict the availability of ­alcohol would be like saying we can deal with obesity by ­increasing the price of chairs so no one can sit down."

But public health lobby groups accuse the European Commission of putting business interests above consumer health.

"Free circulation of ­products and services is so much the one aim of the Commission, health is not up there," according to Michel Craplet of the European Council for Alcohol Research Rehabilitation and Education (Eurocare).

"We are not asking for prohibition but we do need better alcohol ­controls," he said.

But a Commission spokesman said: "Whatever, we propose will be in line with subsidiarity and the limits of our competence."

The spokesman explained that the Commission will aim "to set out what member states are doing and what more industry could do in terms of self-regulation".

"Where the Commission can help co-ordinate this we will examine the options."

The European Commssioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Markos Kyprianou, will call for a new forum on ­alcohol and health as part of the forthcoming strategy to combat the harmful effects of ­drinking, to be approved by the Commission later this month.