On Wednesday, January 31, the European Commission conducted a high-level event in commemoration of World Cancer Day on February 4th.
Under the theme “Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan: Joining Forces” the European Commission hosted the high-level event to take stock of Europe’s efforts to improve the lives of everyone touched by cancer and to take the lead in the fight against this disease.
Changing the realities of cancer is one of the main priorities of the European Commission in the health domain. Three years after the adoption of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, convened Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, Dr Hans Kluge, Regional Director for Europe, World Health Organization, Frank Vandenbroucke, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health, Belgium and other esteemed speakers from the medical community, civil society, and policy-making spheres.
Two highlights of the event were the musical interlude from Sea of Change choir, that brings together cancer survivors in Ireland. And the ensuing networking cocktail was alcohol-free.
Highlighting importance of tackling alcohol as major risk factor for cancer
Three high-level speakers highlighted the importance of taking action to tackle alcohol as major risk factor for cancer in Europe.
For example, Dr. Javier Padilla, Secretary of State for Health, Spain briefly mentioned alcohol and tobacco use as preventable risk factors for cancer that should receive focused attention for intervention.
Another example was the speech by Dr. Hans Kluge, Regional Director, WHO Europe. Dr Kluge emphasized the good collaboration between the EU and WHO in Europe to beat cancer, specifically when it comes to alcohol as cancer risk factor and alcohol warning labels. The European Commission supports the EVID-ACTION program of WHO Europe.
In December 2022, WHO Europe launched the ground-breaking initiative “Evidence into Action Alcohol Project (EVID-ACTION)“, supported by the European Commission. EVID-ACTION is designed to contribute to delivering on the objectives of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. Alcohol harm is pervasive in Europe and alcohol policy action has largely been lacking in the last decade. That is why Movendi International welcomed and supported this much needed investment in evidence-based and ambitious action to protect more Europeans from alcohol harm.
In his speech at the World Cancer Day 2024 event of the European Commission, Dr Kluge also emphasized alcohol as an important part of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan:
We know that every level of alcohol is harmful. To achieve our goals, to reduce cancer mortality, we need to confront the commercial determinants. But for this we need bold leadership.”
Dr. Hans Kluge, Regional Director, WHO Europe
Dr Kluge expressed urgency in this work, saying that what we need is more health in Europe and not less.
Another high-level speaker who emphasized the need to tackle alcohol as serious cancer risk factor was Frank Vandenbroucke, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health, Belgium. He underlined the importance of the environment people live in for cancer prevention and health promotion:
… for too long disease risk factors have been framed as mostly linked to individual choice. That is only partly true. Healthy choices are limited if consumers do not have easily understandable consumer information. If unhealthy products are too easily accessible. If the environment they live in is simply unhealthy. Therefore, we have the responsibility to create social conditions that make a healthy lifestyle possible for everybody.”
Frank Vandenbroucke, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health
In this context, Mr Vandenbroucke, stressed that we had to revamp the debate on European regulatory initiatives with regard to tobacco, alcohol, and nutrition. It was essential to address commercial determinants of health in the development of public policies to prevent cancer through tackling alcohol, tobacco, and other major risk factors.
He mentioned the example of sugar-sweetened beverage giant Coca Cola: they spend $4 billion globally on marketing each year – just one company – dwarfing prevention budgets.
If we really want progress in primary prevention, we have to make progress in the development of legal proposals under the Cancer Plan, notably its primary prevention pillar. It’s time to start a much more open debate on the impact of private players on health.”
Frank Vandenbroucke, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health
Battlefield alcohol policy
The European Commission launched Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan on February 3, 2021. Since then, the alcohol industry has made alcohol policy a battlefield, attempting to derailing the implementation of evidence-based, scientifically proven policy solutions to help prevent millions of cancer cases in Europe.
As part of the prevention action in Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, health warning labels on alcohol products are an EU priority. But just a few weeks after the adoption of the Plan, the alcohol industry launched an aggressive fight against labeling, using tactics of muddying the science and using their own corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives against this proven effective public health measure.
The ambitious Plan aims to reduce the cancer burden in the European Union affecting patients, their families and health systems. It addresses cancer related inequalities between and within EU Member States with actions to support, coordinate and complement Member States’ efforts.
Prevention in general and alcohol policy solutions in particular are central elements in the effort to beat cancer in the EU. Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan contains the target of – at least – a 10% reduction in per capita alcohol use by 2025, as countries had already agreed in 2015 when adopting the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals.
In March 2021, governments across the EU began adapting “Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan” and expressed support. For example, the Swedish government welcomed the new EU Cancer Plan. Several of the goals of the Plan coincided with the national cancer strategy of Sweden and the associated long-term focus for cancer prevention and care.
In May the same year, the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) podcast explored the alcohol policy measures contained in Europe’s Beating Cancer plan, with a special focus on alcohol warning labels.
And later in 2021, the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Beating Cancer (BECA) adopted its final proposals on how to strengthen the EU’s role in the fight against cancer. Among these proposals, two paragraphs focused specifically on alcohol’s role in driving cancer. The report spotlighted different aspects of alcohol policy measures, ranging from introducing health warnings on alcohol beverages, recognizing that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, and advocating for prohibition of alcohol sports sponsorship.
Big Alcohol attacks alcohol policy measures in Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan
All this scientific evidence, all this political attention to proven alcohol policy solutions, and growing public attention to the fact that the ethanol in beer, wine, and liquor is causing cancer got the alcohol industry scared that effective alcohol policy action would be imminent, threatening their profits.
Therefore, Big Alcohol launched a fierce attack against Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.
For instance, in early 2022, alcohol industry lobbying succeeded in making the alcohol policy elements of the report prepared by the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Beating Cancer (BECA) the most controversial of the entire debate. Out of 70 MEPs speaking, 25 MEPs specifically talked about alcohol and many of those echoed Big Alcohol talking points and myths. Alarmingly, most of the comments from party groups ID and EPP were repetitions of alcohol industry talking points.
Movendi International member organization IOGT-NTO were part of the debate and analyzed what happened to the alcohol policy language in the BECA report at the European Parliament after Big Alcohol lobbying.
The onslaught was an unprecedented attack by the wine industry against European cancer prevention efforts.
Eventually, the European Parliament voted in favor of Big Alcohol and against scientifically proven alcohol policy solutions in the effort to beat cancer in Europe.
With the help of IOGT-NTO experts in Brussels, Movendi International provides analysis of the changes made and how they reflect alcohol industry positions.
In late 2023, as the Big Alcohol interference against effective cancer prevention persisted in the European Parliament, WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr Kluge and Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Dr Elisabete Weiderpass issued a timely joint statement to the European Parliament. A specialized committee of the European Parliament was dealing with the European response to the heavy burden of non-communicable diseases, such as cancer and heart diseases, and the risk factors causing the NCDs burden, such as alcohol and tobacco. But the wording of the Own Initiative Report on NCDs was aggressively lobbied by the alcohol industry. Big Alcohol lobbyists managed to destroy meaningful language in the report on alcohol harm and alcohol policy solutions.
Dr Kluge and Dr Weiderpass made two recommendations to the European Parliament in their timely statement.
The alcohol industry lobbying campaign discards people’s right to health and well-being and to be protected from known carcinogens. And the Big Alcohol lobbying onslaught ignores growing scientific knowledge about the heavy burden of cancer caused by alcohol.
For example, in April 2023, a landmark study revealed the staggering amount of lost productivity from cancer deaths caused by alcohol in Europe.
Premature deaths from cancer due to alcohol cost €4.58 Billion in productivity losses alone, in the EU.
More information
Webcast: Watch the event, here.
Photo gallery: See pictures from the event, here.
Program and speakers: See the agenda of the event, here (PDF).
