Question to the council on The EU's alcohol strategy

Date published: October 21 2009

Question by Anna Hedh: The EU's alcohol strategy

It is nearly three years since we adopted the EU's alcohol strategy. The intention was that it should be assessed by the summer of 2009. Unfortunately the assessment seems to have been postponed. For Sweden, alcohol policy has always been an important issue and one to which it assigns priority in EU cooperation.

Will the Swedish Presidency therefore seek to ensure that the strategy is assessed without delay? If so, when exactly?
On behalf of the council, Cecilia Malmström gave an oral answer to Anna Hedh (S&D, SE) during the plenary session of October 21 2009.

The minister said Swedish's strategy was to help the member states. To that aim, Sweden organized several events with the member states such as an informal ministers meeting. A conference at global level will be organized in May 2010. She said that alcohol policy was a key element for health at EU level. Since the first of January 2007, the European commission has established a policy to combat alcoholism. The final report will be released in 2012. She indicated that Sweden participates with the European commission in a working group to establish the next priorities. “In December 2009, we hope to be able to draw some conclusions”.

Anna Hedh (S&D, SE) said the assessment of the strategy was announced for the summer of 2009 and wondered why this was not respected.

Cecilia Malmström thanked the MEP for her support and indicated that the final report would be published in 25012.
Justas Vincas Paleckis (S&D, LT) spoke about road accidents and suicides related to alcohol. He added “What do you think about taking measures and banning the sale of alcohol to young people?”

Catherine Stihler (S&D, UK) wanted to bring the minister's attention to the fact that in Scotland a debate on a minimum pricing of alcohol products was currently happening. “I wanted to take this opportunity to ask the Minister whether there is any discussion in the Council over the issue of minimum pricing of alcohol products. There is a big debate happening in Scotland and I was wondering what the Council's perspective is, and whether it is discussing this at all”.

Cecilia Malmström replied: “One of the five priority themes in the EC alcohol strategy is precisely the reduction of injuries and death from alcohol related road accidents. This is, as the honorable Member said, a very big problem and it causes enormous suffering and has economic costs as well. The Commission has recommended the adoption of a lower maximum for inexperienced and professional drivers, while countries who already apply limits should not decrease them. There is a recommendation on this, and we are working with the Member States. Many States have already applied those recommendations and there are a lot of awareness raising activities going on to discuss this issue. I am not aware of any ongoing discussion on prices. There might be. I will check with my colleague, the Minister for Health, who is responsible for that, but I do not think that particular issue is being discussed. There are many other alcohol related issues that are being followed up right now, but probably not this one for the moment, because it is of course not an EU competence.”