For 2020, hand sanitisers and disinfectants are what new iPhones and electric vehicles were for 2019. So, who are the Apples and Teslas of ethyl alcohol, asks Zoltán Szabó and explains how a climate solution is being turned into health assistance.
Beer drinkers like clear, consistent, honest communication. That’s why Europe’s brewers have voluntary committed to providing consumers with the list of ingredients and nutrition information in full accordance with EU law, a decision welcomed by policymakers and NGOs alike.
Nutritional information should be clearly marked on the labels of alcohol products, and the off-label proposals being put forward by industry are not sufficient, writes Professor Markus Peck-Radosavljevic.
You are what you eat, the saying goes, but what about what we drink? Dietary regulations across Europe need to be stricter if digestive disease rates are to fall, writes Thierry Ponchon.
Consumers make hundreds of choices every day, some of which imply weighing the tradeoffs of joy versus long term health. These are highly subjective decisions, and in a free society adult consumers should have the right to make these choices and not have them dictated to them by public health tsars, writes Fred Roeder.
In his State of the Union speech, Jean-Claude Juncker called the Canada-EU trade agreement the most progressive trade agreement the EU has ever negotiated. It actually poses a genuine threat to the health sector, argues Emma Woodford.
While the European Commission is still debating the added value the EU can bring to tackle alcohol-related harm, The Brewers of Europe remain committed to working together with governments and civil society in promoting responsible beer consumption, writes Pierre-Olivier Bergeron.
There are many notorious examples of people - from celebrities to ordinairy holiday-makers - who have become intoxicated on flights to the point of posing a threat to passengers and the flight itself, writes Peter Allebeck.
Jean-Claude Juncker had the unique opportunity to make his State of the Union speech special. Unfortunately, he left many of Europe’s “monumental” challenges unaddressed, writes Kristina Sperkova.
SPECIAL REPORT / To know what our food and drinks are made of is a basic consumer right. However, alcoholic beverages – often loaded with calories and sugar – scarcely display the full list of ingredients and nutritional information, escaping the rules applied to everything else we eat and drink, writes Ilaria Passarani.
SPECIAL REPORT / The Brewers of Europe have announced a groundbreaking commitment to go beyond the existing EU legislation on consumer information, and progressively provide ingredients and nutrition values on their products, writes Pierre-Olivier Bergeron.
A positive vote by the Parliament's Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee on the Alcohol Strategy Resolution on the 31st of March is crucial, writes Anna Hedh.
Instead of addressing the harm alcohol inflicts to public health, social fabric, economic productivity and even democracy abroad, EU Commissioner Karel De Gucht chooses to praise its trade benefits, writes Sven-Olov Carlsson.
As production and sales move underground, governments lose their ability to regulate, assess and control alcohol distribution. This can result in serious public health risks, especially for the poorest and heaviest drinkers, writes Marjana Martinic.
Alcohol abuse does not require over-regulation to be addressed. A voluntary approach through informing consumers of health risks has yielded results and should be pursued further, argues Pierre-Olivier Bergeron.
