The European Spirits Organisation

EU Alcohol and Health Forum

The European Alcohol and Health Forum was launched on 7 June 2007 in order to support, provide input for and monitor the implementation of the EU Alcohol Strategy (October 2006). It is a platform where bodies active at European level can debate, compare approaches and act to tackle alcohol related harm. It operates in complete transparency, requiring all participants to publicly commit to taking actions, to describe their activities and to monitor and report on what they have done.

Members and Membership

The European Spirits Organisation - CEPS was a founding member along with more than 40 other stakeholders (alcohol producers, the media and advertisement industry, public health bodies, research institutions and health, consumer and youth NGOs). Membership has since grown to 64 members (for a list of current members see here).

As defined in the Forum Charter, in order to become a member of the Alcohol and Health Forum, the European Commission requires stakeholders to 'contribute to reducing alcohol related harm in the EU through concrete and verifiable commitments that can be monitored in a transparent, participative and accountable way.' These actions are referred to as commitments and contribute to the five priority areas identified in the Forum Charter. In order to retain membership of the Forum, commitments must be active.

Commitments

The first commitments had to be submitted to the Commission by December 2007. Since the European spirits industry had already publicly committed to its own Charter on Responsible Alcohol Consumption, Forum commitments mirrored those in the Charter and were active until November 2010:

• Responsible marketing: Where relevant, codes of marketing conduct will exist in all CEPS member countries by 2010, incorporating as a minimum the principles laid down in the EFRD Common Standards on Commercial Communications;
• Consumer awareness: CEPS members will communicate more widely on the need to consume spirit drinks responsibly and the dangers of misuse. As well as sponsoring targeted and general information campaigns, by 2010, 75% of print, TV/cinema and website advertising by CEPS members will carry a responsible drinking message; Reporting: CEPS will produce an annual independently verified progress report on its commitments.

The final implementation report on the Charter was published in November 2010 and is available here.

In January 2011, CEPS introduced a new commitment to the forum, the CEPS Roadmap 2015: responsibledrinking.eu which will run until 2015. It is based on three pillars:

• Enhancing responsible commercial communication;
• Encouraging responsible drinking;
• Engaging more stakeholders.

CEPS will annually deliver a public report tracking the implementation of targeted actions and interventions of the three pillars listed above.

All commitments made by CEPS and members of the forum can be found here.

Monitoring and evaluation

Part of the Forum process is that all members provide monitoring report(s) regarding the progress of their commitment(s) via a standardised monitoring report. The evaluation of these monitoring reports does not assess the content or effect of the commitments but evaluates objective, resources allocated, outputs produced and the dissemination and evaluation of the results of the commitments. So far two evaluation reports have been published (2009 and 2010).

Forum bodies

• The Plenary consists of all Forum members and meets twice a year. So far eight meetings have been held.
• The Open Forum is held once a year and is open to interested bodies who are not Forum members so that they can follow the Forum's work. So far three meetings have been held.
• The taskforce on marketing communications is currently dormant. It examines initiatives relating to the regulation and practice of marketing for alcoholic beverages.
• The science working group meets two or three times a year, as necessary, and provides scientific guidance to the work of the Forum. So far eight meetings have been held.
• The taskforce on youth-related aspects of alcohol no longer exists and has been replaced by the RAYPRO database which contains interventions aimed at young people.

For documents relating to the above bodies see here.

Apart from the aforementioned Science Group, the European Spirits Organisation - CEPS is an active and engaged member of all Forum bodies and taskforces.

In our view, the Forum's focus on verifiable actions is helping to build mutual understanding and respect amongst stakeholders with very divergent views. This marks a welcome change from the polarised policy debates of the past, and we hope that the Forum will result in a more constructive and effective approach to addressing alcohol related harm, where the legitimate role of all stakeholders is respected and better coordinated.

More information and related links:

European Spirits Organisation - CEPS Forum inauguration press release (7 June 2007)

European Commission - EU Alcohol and Health Forum and commitment database

Last updated on 28 April 2011.