Brussels, 04/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - The next meeting of the European Forum on Alcohol and Health should have begun on Thursday 5 November but ultimately will not take place because health organisations decided not to attend.
Last June, the organisations decided to leave the forum in protest at the work carried out by the European Commission. They were also unhappy with the failure to develop a new “alcohol” strategy to replace the 2006 strategy.
According to the Commission, the WHO strategy is “sufficient”. The organisations' initiative appears, however, to have failed and according to our information, the Commission does not intend to move towards developing a new strategy. It intends to draw from the World Health Organisation (WHO) framework on chronic diseases and according to a senior European official and loyal supporter of the Jean-Claude Juncker approach, “there is no point at all in increasing the number of initiatives when they share the same goals”. According to this source, the Commission is due to publish a document highlighting the fact that the European Union can help contribute to the WHO targets by way of regional funding, research projects and even health programme pilot projects. He added that “there has been no final decision about the shape of this document yet” and that the aim was to develop “a work plan before the end of the year”.
Current framework. National policies on alcohol issues mainly fall within the remit of the EU member states themselves. Nonetheless, in 2006, the Commission adopted a European strategy to help member states reduce alcohol-related damages. In 2007, it also set up the European Forum on Alcohol and Health, whose goal is to encourage different society stakeholders to make a commitment to supporting the EU strategy. At the same time, it held discussions with member states within the framework of the Committee on National Alcohol Policy and Action (CNAPA). Following the expiry of the strategy in 2006, Parliament and the Health Council both urged the Commission to publish a new document. In a resolution on 29 April, MEPs called for the strategy for the 2016-22 period to focus on the same objectives as before, namely, tackling the issues relating to the harm caused by alcohol at a level of the member states, a shift towards action and the promotion of a participatory multilateral approach. They are also urging the Commission to develop its impact study on the labelling of calories in alcoholic drinks, without delay, which should have been published before 13 December 2014, in compliance with Regulation No.1169/2011. According to Mariann Skar, the secretary-general of Eurocare, no date has as yet been announced in this connection. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)