The Swedish Presidency of the European Union: alcohol in the spotlight

Reducing harm from alcohol consumption has been designated one of the main health priorities of the Swedish Presidency of the European Union. Other priorities include preparedness for the influenza pandemic, effective use of medicinal products and access to effective antibacterials.

On alcohol, the Swedish government stated that it recognised the major threat posed by alcohol to public health, social welfare and economic development in many EU member countries. It stated that the goal of the Swedish Presidency is to support the implementation of the horizontal EU alcohol strategy introduced in autumn 2006, and the establishment of long-term preventive work at both EU and national level. In the long term, the goal is to reduce alcohol-related harm in Sweden and the Union.

The Swedish Presidency is giving particular priority to reducing the impact of alcohol advertising and marketing on young people. Other issues to which the Presidency wants to draw attention include the influence of price on the development of alcohol related harm and the effects of harmful alcohol consumption on healthy and dignified ageing.

The EU Alcohol Strategy

The Strategy addresses the adverse health effects of harmful and hazardous alcohol consumption in the EU, where it is estimated to cause the deaths of 195,000 people each year. The priorities identified in the Communication are to protect young people and children; reduce injuries and deaths from alcohol-related road accidents; prevent alcohol harm among adults and reduce the negative impact on the economy; raise awareness of the impact on health of harmful alcohol consumption; and help gather reliable statistics.

The implementation process for the Strategy has four main pillars. There is a Committee on National Alcohol Policy and Action on which the representatives of the EU Member States exchange information and ideas; a Committee on data collection, indicators and definitions, intended to ensure compatibility of the official statistics of alcohol consumption and harm across the Member States; and there is the European Alcohol and Health Forum which brings together economic operators, public health bodies, NGOs and other stakeholders, all the members of the Forum having to commit to making some definite contribution to the reduction of alcohol harm. The fourth pillar is a commitment to working across other EU policies, on transport, youth, agriculture etc to ensure their compatibility with the Alcohol Strategy.

Alcohol and Health Forum

Many of the commitments made by the economic operators who are members of the Forum concern educational initiatives. However, the Forum has also considered other policy measures as well as education, special reports being prepared on the price and affordability of alcohol in EU countries, and on the impact of advertising and marketing of alcohol, especially on young people.

On advertising, a review of the available evidence by the Science Group established by the Forum found that, overall, the studies reviewed found consistent evidence to demonstrate that “alcohol marketing increases the likelihood that adolescents will start to use alcohol, and to drink more if they are already using alcohol”.

This finding, the Group commented, was all the more striking, given that only a small part of a total marketing strategy had been studied. The Group stressed that the studies came from countries with a long history of advertising and with relatively high levels of alcohol consumption, and that it was difficult to speculate about the size of the impact of marketing in cultures with either a short history of advertising or low alcohol consumption.

These conclusions are likely to influence considerably the outlook of the Swedish Presidency, possibly increasing the political pressure for greater quantitative restrictions on alcohol advertising as well as on the content of advertisements.

EU Alcohol Strategy: Progress Report

The Swedish Presidency coincides with the production of an initial status report on what has happened at EU and national level since the alcohol strategy was adopted. The report is being prepared by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO).

The status report will be presented at the expert conference on alcohol and health organised by the Swedish presidency in cooperation with DG SANCO in September 2009.

This status report, together with the results of a conference of experts on alcohol and health, which the Presidency is arranging in September, will form a basis for the Council’s discussions. The Presidency’s hope is that the Council will adopt conclusions at its meeting in December to support the EU alcohol strategy.

“Long term, patient efforts are required to reduce the harmful effects of alcohol. The EU’s alcohol strategy is a good tool”, said Sweden’s Minister for Elderly Care and Public Health Maria Larsson. “We must ensure that the measures to counteract the harmful effects of alcohol remain high on the EU’s agenda.”

Eurocare Response

Eurocare, the European Alcohol Policy Alliance, which campaigned for many years for an alcohol strategy to be implemented at EU level and is a founder member of the Alcohol and Health Forum, welcomed the production of the interim status report and plans to make its own contribution to the process of assessing the success of the Strategy so far by producing its own `shadow report’ on progress, based on a survey of the Eurocare member organisations and other public health stakeholders.

Eurocare’s Shadow Report is still being prepared at the time of writing, but it is understood that while the Eurocare members
express strong support for the aims and objectives of the EU Strategy, most are sceptical that the Strategy will, of itself, significantly reduce the casualties from alcohol harm, and some elements of the implementation strategy are controversial.

The chief cause of controversy is the high level of involvement in the Strategy of the alcohol industry, particularly in respect of the Alcohol and Health Forum. While the Commission’s view appears to be that the multi-stakeholder approach, in which all the main parties with an interest in alcohol policy have the opportunity to participate, is essential and possibly provides a model for other parts of the world, some Eurocare members and others on the public health side are worried that the alcohol industry is being given the opportunity to obstruct progress and divert activity into areas such as educational campaigns which the scientific evidence suggests are relatively ineffective as measures to reduce harm.

It is believed that other reservations likely to be expressed by Eurocare members are that the EU member states may not be taking the Alcohol Strategy very seriously, and that there appears to be only very limited progress in ensuring that other areas of EU policy, such as policy on excise duties, are made consistent with the requirements of the Alcohol Strategy.