The labelling of alcoholic drinks and taxing sugary foods were both issues discussed at the informal Health Ministers’ meeting on 20 March in Malta. The other subjects on the agenda included the fight against AIDS, access to innovative medicines and training health specialists.
Vytenis Andriukaitis, the European Commissioner for Health, stated in the preamble to the meeting that, “Childhood obesity has become a real pandemic”. Nonetheless, should sugary drinks be taxed as recommended by the World Health Organisation (see EUROPE 11644) and as currently done by the United Kingdom? The Commissioner said this decision was within the remit of the member states and not the Commission but, “nonetheless, taxation is a powerful way of tackling a phenomenon, whether this involves sugar, salt or trans acids and fats, alcohol or tobacco and I am proud that certain member states have introduced such a tax”.
The Luxembourg Minister for Health and Equal Opportunities, Lydia Mutsch, indicated that she expected half a dozen member states to apply “a sugar tax” by 2018. She explained that, “in Luxembourg, we have obtained a prior agreement with the Treasury to apply such a tax. This is expected to enter into force in 2018”. Questioned about the same subject, the Swedish minister, Gabriel Wikstrom, indicated that this issue was up for discussion even though his country “was not ready to take this step yet”. Several sources confirmed to us that the subject would probably be on the agenda of the June European Council.
Another surprised at this meeting involved the recent Commission report on exemptions to the regulation on information about food for consumers, presented on 13 March. According to the information we have received, a majority of member states have said that they are against the idea of allowing businesses to put forward a proposal for self-regulation and developing a general list of ingredients and nutritional information and relevant information link to this on alcoholic drink labels.
For all the remaining issues, ministers mainly discussed structured cross-border cooperation and the provision of health technologies in the treatment of rare diseases and training medical specialists. They also welcomed the launch on 1 March of the European Reference Networks (ERN). Collaboration between Visegrad countries or between the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria, to strengthen the negotiating power of the member states when confronting the pharmaceutical industry was mentioned on numerous occasions in this regard. Ireland and a number of other member states may join this latter initiative but we have been informed that “nothing is expected to happen before September”. The Maltese Presidency is expected to organise a roundtable discussion with representatives from the industry on 9 May next.
Two other meetings happened at the same time as the ministerial meeting: a satellite meeting of the EMA committee on orphan medicines and a workshop on integrating research and health care provision into the treatment of rare diseases. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)