PROBABLY NOT THE BEST REGULATORY REGIME IN THE WORLD? THE EU’S FAILURE TO ENSURE THE EFFECTIVE REGULATION OF ALCOHOL MARKETING IN EUROPE AND WHAT COULD BE DONE TO IMPROVE IT

The European Union is the heaviest drinking region in the world, with an average adult alcohol consumption of 12.5 litres – 27g per day – of pure alcohol per year, and over one fifth of the European population aged 15 and over reporting heavy episodic drinking (over 50g alcohol) at least once a week. Alcohol is recognised to constitute a major risk to the health of individuals and populations. If consumed in excess, alcohol is a major hazard to human health. Such is the risk that excessive alcohol consumption poses to public health, the EU in 2006 adopted an EU Alcohol Strategy. The Strategy envisages the implementation of a number of medical, social and legal initiatives to combat the harm caused by alcohol. This piece of research work intends to analyse of one of these policy areas: the legal regulation of the marketing of alcoholic beverages within the EU. It will attempt to show that the controls on alcohol advertising enacted at EU level are inadequate, as are many of the control enacted by Member States. It will reveal that the operation of the EU Treaties prevents Member States from pursuing a truly effective alcohol policy at national level, and that the resulting state of the legal landscape does not do enough to help prevent harm to EU public health through alcohol abuse. The research conducted here suggests instead that new legislation at EU level might be a better way forward, and presents findings which indicate that it would be possible for a new, more stringent and more effective EU regulatory scheme to be put into place.