Commission plans to scrap EU alcohol strategy
The EU’s health and safety commissioner has confirmed there are no plans to submit a new alcohol strategy to combat alcohol related harm in Europe.
The EU will not outline a new alcohol strategy, the health and safety commissioner has saidVytenis Andriukaitis, the EU’s health and food safety commissioner made the announcement at a meeting of the European Alcohol and health Forum (EAHF) in Brussels on Monday.
During his speech, Andriukaitis explained there are no plans to outline a new EU Alcohol Strategy, but that the issue would be treated as part of a wide range of “risk factors” affecting numerous diseases.
The EU’s most recent strategy expired in 2013 and was drafted to give guidance to EU member states on how to prevent harmful drinking by working to improve areas including drink driving, drinking alcohol while pregnant and underage alcohol consumption.
“I would like to place action on the main causes of chronic diseases, including alcohol but also tobacco, nutrition and physical inactivity,” said Andriukaitis, as reported by Euractiv.
“It is less important for me what word we are using to define the paper setting out such a joint commitment. What matters is the results.”
In March, the UK’s House of Lords committee criticised the EU’s alcohol strategy saying it “achieved little”, and encouraged member states to focus on taxation and labelling to tackle problem drinking.
Later that same month, the secretary general of Eurocare, Mariann Skar, wrote an open letter to the European Parliament urging MEPs to make public health the top priority of any amendments to the EU Alcohol Strategy.
