Brussels, 08/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - The report by British Labour MEP Catherine Stihler, which the next Tuesday's plenary is to discuss, proposes amending the European Commission's recommendation on alcohol consumption among children and adolescents. With her amendments, Ms. Stihler: 1) places emphasis on the need to carry out surveys on alcohol consumption among young Europeans "in a uniform manner, so that they are effectively comparable"; 2) calls for the implementation of appropriate health-promotion policies targeted at children, adolescents, their parents, their teachers and their entourage at local, regional, national and European level; 3) says she prefers to the expression "harmful consumption of alcohol" to the term "addiction", considering that alcohol-addicted adolescents only represent a small group.
You may recall that the recommendation is aimed, notably, at: 1) encouraging Member States to improve promotion, education and information in health matters in educational establishments and youth movements; 2) engage in active prosecutions of illegal sales of alcohol to minors; 3) set up codes of conduct. According to a recent survey among 15/16 year-olds, the countries of the EU with the highest incidence on sporadic immoderate consumption of alcohol are Ireland, the United Kingdom and Denmark, and the high proportion of boys aged 15 who consume beer is of concern in Wales (50%), Denmark (43%) and England (43%). According to the WHO, over half the young people in Denmark, Finland, England, Scotland and Wales aged 15 have declared having been drunk more than twice in their lives, whereas the corresponding percentages were lower than 30% in France and Greece.