European Alcohol Policy

Alcohol is a key public health and social concern across Europe. Europe has the highest proportion of drinkers in the world, the highest levels of alcohol consumption per capita and a high level of alcohol-related harm. Alcohol related harm is a major public health concern in the EU accountable for over 7% of all ill health and early deaths. The consequences of harmful and hazardous alcohol consumption also include a considerable number of fatalities on EU roads, a broad social impact such as violence, hooliganism, crime, family problems and social exclusion, as well as low productivity.

European Union

In 2001, the European Council adopted the “Council recommendation: alcohol and young people, especially children and adolescents” as well as a set of Conclusions. In 2004, the Council recommendation was evaluated and the conclusion was that the time was ripe to come up with a comprehensive strategy. The Council invited the European Commission to put forward such a strategy.
The development of that strategy took several years, firstly because there was a lot of resistance to the mere thought of a community strategy by the drinks industry and secondly because the EC commissioned several preparing studies into the nature and extent of alcohol use and alcohol problems in Europe. This resulted in the lengthy report “Alcohol in Europe; a public health perspective” and two impact assessments: one on health aspects and one on economic aspects.

Finally in October 2006 the European Commission agreed upon the “EU Alcohol Strategy”. One month later the Strategy was endorsed by the Council. The strategy contains soft law, which means that it does not propose the development of harmonised legislation. It just sums up five priority themes which are relevant in all member states and for which Community action in complement to national policies and coordination of national actions has an added value:
1. Protect young people, children and the unborn child;
2. Reduce injuries and death from alcohol-related road traffic accidents;
3. Prevent alcohol-related harm among adults and reduce the negative impact on the workplace;
4. Inform, educate and raise awareness on the impact of harmful and hazardous alcohol consumption, and on appropriate consumption patters;
5. Develop, support and maintain a common evidence base.

In its Conclusions of November 2006 the Council welcomed the Alcohol Strategy, but underlined that alcohol-related harm should be addressed in a coherent manner in relevant areas as research, consumer protection, transport, advertising, marketing, sponsoring, excise duties and other internal market issues.
Other European institutions, as the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions also responded positive, although there were some critical notes.

The most concrete result of the EU Alcohol Strategy is the Alcohol and Health Forum. This Forum is set up to give the drinks industry and relevant NGOs (among them STAP) the chance to come up with specific prevention and information projects. The Forum is now extended with a Science Group and two task forces. In addition, there is an annual Open Alcohol and Health Forum.
Representatives of the Member States have their own platform: the Committee on National Alcohol Policy and Action.

In 2009 the European Commission published a state of the art report on the implementation of the EU Alcohol Strategy in the member states. The EU Alcohol Strategy is now being evaluated. This could be the basis of a continuation of the activities in this field by the European Commission

European Alcohol Strategy (75,5 kB)

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World Health Organization (WHO)

Within the WHO harmful use of alcohol is an important theme since the early 1990s.

At European level an “European Alcohol Action Plan” was adopted in 1992. That plan called for intensification of alcohol policy, which included more stringent national legislation and more international cooperation. One of the corollaries of this action plan was a European Ministerial Conference on Alcohol (1995), which unanimously adopted an “European Alcohol Charter”.

In 1999 the European Regional Committee of the World Health Organization approved the “European Alcohol Action Plan 2000-2005”. In this action plan the political strategies of the Charter are elaborated in concrete activities and objectives. In February 2001, this second action plan was endorsed unanimously during the Second European Ministerial Conference, together with a “Declaration on Alcohol and Young People”.

The “European Alcohol Action Plan 2000-2005” was followed up by a “Framework for Alcohol Policy in the WHO European Region”. That was adopted in Bucharest in 2005. Due to a lack of capacity at European Office of the WHO in Copenhagen this Framework was never elaborated.

In September 2011 the European Regional Committee endorsed the “European action plan to reduce the harmful use of alcohol 2012–2020”. Building on previous European alcohol action plans, the five main objectives of the new Action Plan are aligned with those of the WHO “Global Alcohol Strategy” (May 2010) to:
- raise awareness of the magnitude and nature of the health, social and economic burdens due to alcohol;
- strengthen and disseminate the knowledge base;
- enhance capacity to manage and treat alcohol-related disorders;
- increase mobilization of resources for concerted action; and
- improve surveillance and advocacy.

The plan highlights ten action points, each presented with following strategies and options for action.
- leadership, awareness and commitment;
- health services’ response;
- community and workplace action;
- drink–driving policies and countermeasures;
- availability of alcohol;
- pricing policies;
- marketing of alcoholic beverages;
- reducing the negative consequences of drinking and alcohol intoxication;
- reducing the public health impact of illicit alcohol and informally produced;
- monitoring and surveillance.

European Action Plan 2012-2020 (140 kB)

Global Alcohol Strategy (1,72 MB)

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European projects

STAP participated or participates in the following European projects (in alphabetic order):

AMMIE: Alcohol Marketing Monitoring in Europe
The AMMIE project started in 2008. The main aim of the project is the monitoring of alcohol marketing in 5 European countries (Denmark, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and the Netherlands). This monitoring will be implemented by independent national NGOs based on the experience of the Dutch Institute for Alcohol Policy (STAP), who has been doing this since 2002 commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. Although these Member States differ in terms of drinking pattern as well as alcohol marketing regulation systems, in this project we develop a systematic monitoring tool that can be implemented in all selected countries.

AMPHORA: (www.amphoraproject.net).
AMPHORA aims to contribute with new evidence on scarcely explored or unexplored areas of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm in Europe. This knowledge will be disseminated to those engaged in policy-making for development and implementation of more effective public health measures. AMPHORA is a four-year €4 million project co-financed by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of research of the European Commission and is coordinated by the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona (HCPB) in Spain.

Bridging the Gap:
The Eurocare project, Alcohol Policy Network in the Context of a Larger Europe: Bridging the Gap (BtG) was co-funded by the European Commission for the years 2004-2006. The main aim of the project was to create a vibrant alcohol policy network to further the development of an integrated Community strategy to reduce alcohol related-harm in the context of a larger Europe as embodied in the Council's conclusions of 5 June 2001, and to support and encourage European countries to implement the Council Recommendation on the drinking of alcohol by young people. The project included partners in 30 European countries as well as the World Health Organization (European Office), the European Youth Forum, and the European Public Health Alliance.

The Alcohol Policy Network (APN) is a European platform for sharing knowledge, experiences and opinions on public health oriented alcohol policy issues. It emerged in the context of the Bridging the Gap project and was initiated at the meeting of this project in Warsaw in 2004. Over the years the APN has grown, both in number of participants as well as in importance, functioning as a real network: a community of individuals who exchange news, share information and in some cases, cooperate on joint activities; an inspiring, knowledge-increasing, and capacity- strengthening forum for its participants

Building Capacity: (www.ias.org.uk) .
The Building Capacity project, with 31 country partners and 10 European organizations, builds on the work of the project "Bridging the Gap". The main expected results include a vibrant alcohol policy network, an inventory of experiences, best practices and infrastructures, and an enhanced capacity at European, country, regional and municipal levels to develop, implement and monitor alcohol policy, supported by a series of alcohol policy related fact sheets, and a health and economic assessment of the impact of alcohol policies at the country level.

DRAIN: Dutch Romanian Alcohol policy Implementation Network (www.drain-project.eu)
DRAIN is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Matra. Romania has no tradition of alcohol policy, while drinking (illegal) alcohol is embedded in the culture. In addition to the enforcement of laws and regulations, it is therefore a need for politicians, policy makers and citizens to be aware of the dangers of drinking alcohol. In the Romanian city of Piteşti a model for effective local alcohol policy is developed. The results will be recorded in a manual, that shall be distributed under Romanian municipalities.

ELSA : Enforcement of national Laws and Self-regulation on advertising and marketing of Alcohol (www.stap.nl) .
The ELSA-project, which was co-financed by the European Commission, was a two year project (2005-2007) that assessed the enforcement of national laws and self-regulation on the advertising and marketing of alcoholic beverages in all 24 Member States and applicant countries and Norway. The project was coordinated by STAP. The main objective of the project was to assess and report on the enforcement of national laws and self-regulation on the advertising and marketing of alcoholic beverages in EU-Member States, applicant countries and Norway. To that end a network of experts from the different participating countries was established. The partners of ELSA together have succeeded to deliver 6 reports (www.stap.nl/elsa).

EUCAM: European Centre for Monitoring Alcohol Marketing (www.eucam.info).
EUCAM has been set up to collect, exchange and to promote knowledge and experience about alcohol marketing throughout Europe.
The knowledge partly results from ELSA, the European project that brought together 27 NGOs and governmental officials in order to evaluate the existing regulations regarding alcohol marketing.
EUCAM was established in 2007 by STAP and operates under the support of the NGOs: ACTIS; AV.OG.TIL; IOGT-NTO; NAD (Nordic Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research); Danish Alcohol Policy Network and Eurocare Italia. In 2008 the State Agency for Prevention of Alcohol-Related Problemes (PARPA) became a supporting partner of EUCAM.

FASE: Focus on Alcohol Safe Environment (www.faseproject.eu).
FASE project aimed to collect best practices in work-place strategies to reduce the impact of harmful and hazardous alcohol consumption on the economy as well as best practices on well-resourced community mobilisation and intervention projects to create safer drinking environments, and to develop best practice in advertising, self regulation and monitoring. Funded by the EU Commission.

European studies

ESPAD: European School survey project on Alcohol and Drugs (www.espad.org)
The ESPAD project was started due to the lack of comparable data on substance use among European teenagers. In order to collect such data, a common methodological protocol was established in the early 1990s, including a master questionnaire. For pragmatic reasons the survey is conducted among students in class rooms. Data collections are organised every four years. The first ESPAD survey was carried out in 1995, while the subsequent waves took place in 1999, 2003 and 2007 respectively (an extra data collection for a handful of new countries was also held in 2008). The fifth data collection was during spring 2011. A growing number of countries have participated throughout the years. In 1995 totally 26 countries collected data, in 2011 46 countries (in some cases regions/entities). Both the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe supports the project, as well as national ministries involved.

Eurobarometer Special Surveys (ec.europa.eu) .
The last decade the European Commission carried out two Special Eurobarometer surveys on alcohol. One in 2006 (number 272b, published in March 2007) and one in October 2009 (number 331, published in April 2010).
These studies give trends in drinking patterns and attitudes towards alcohol policies. Awareness of alcohol-related risks was only measured in 2009.

HBSC (Health Behaviour in School-aged Children) (www.hbsc.org) .
The HBSC-study is a cross-national research study conducted in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe. The study aims to gain new insight into, and increase our understanding of young people's health and well-being, health behaviours and their social context.
HBSC was initiated in 1982 by researchers from three countries and shortly afterwards the project was adopted by the World Health Organization as a WHO collaborative study. There are now 43 participating countries and regions. The first cross-national survey was conducted in 1983/84, the second in 1985/86 and since then data collection has been carried out every four years using a common research protocol. The most recent survey, the seventh in the series, was conducted in 2005/06.
Since its inception, the study has been developed by a multi-disciplinary network of researchers from a growing number of countries in North America and Europe (f.i. the Netherlands)