The European Parliament has backed stronger action on cardiovascular disease, but the final text sends a mixed signal on how far the EU should go in regulating the products and behaviours associated with poor health.
MEPs voted 545 to 47, with 75 abstentions, on September 16 to adopt Parliament’s response to the EU’s first strategy on cardiovascular diseases.
The report calls for stronger prevention measures covering smoking, harmful alcohol consumption and unhealthy diets, as well as better early detection and access to treatment.
But the compromises reached during negotiations have produced a more nuanced document than some of the original proposals.
On alcohol, the final text focuses on harmful consumption, particularly consumption above scientifically established recommendations, rather than stating that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.
Proposals for stronger mandatory health warnings were removed, while Parliament instead calls for better nutritional and health information and awareness campaigns.
On food, the report continues to support front-of-pack nutrition labelling and calls for an EU definition of ultra-processed foods. But several more prescriptive proposals were weakened. Binding reformulation targets, taxation measures and some mandatory procurement requirements that appeared in earlier versions did not survive in the same form.
The same pattern can be seen in proposals concerning school meals, food marketing and affordability: The final report retains calls for healthier and more accessible food, but generally relies more heavily on encouragement, information and targeted measures than on EU-wide binding requirements.
The tobacco section is different again.
Parliament calls on the European Commission to bring forward a revamped legislative framework on tobacco control. The official Parliament summary explicitly mentions possible measures including flavour bans, limits on nicotine content and regulation of social-media advertising, including for novel and emerging nicotine and tobacco products.
Yet the final text also contains an important qualification.
During the negotiations, language that would have effectively equated different nicotine products was removed. The adopted report recognises that different nicotine products may have different risk profiles and calls for appropriate and differentiated excise taxation.
It therefore combines calls for tougher regulation with an explicit recognition that regulation does not necessarily have to be identical across all nicotine products.
That combination is likely to become politically important in the next tobacco-policy battle in Parliament and might cause a standoff with the European Commission, which is much more teetotal and hawkish on anything related to tobacco and nicotine.
Adding to this potential conflict with the European Commission, there might also be internal issues as the Parliament’s Public Health Committee, SANT, is currently working on its implementation report on Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, known as BECA. The procedure remains at the committee stage, with Vlad-Vasile Voiculescu (Renew) as rapporteur.
The current BECA draft contains proposals that could test the distinction made in the cardiovascular report.
Among the measures under discussion are plain packaging for products, restrictions on the display of devices, pre-market authorisation provisions and greater tax convergence between products.
Several of these proposals would apply broadly across nicotine-product categories. That potentially puts them at odds with the principle of differentiated risk profiles that Parliament has just retained in its cardiovascular report.
The two files therefore send different signals.
The CVD report does not amount to a rejection of tougher public-health regulation. On tobacco, alcohol and food, Parliament continues to call for substantial action. But it has simultaneously removed or softened a number of more categorical measures and, in the case of nicotine, explicitly retained the concept of differentiated risk.
BECA will now test whether that distinction is carried across to another major EU health dossier.
There is a further dispute over how quickly the BECA file should now move.
The SANT procedure is officially still listed as “awaiting committee decision”, with the Parliament’s Legislative Observatory currently giving November 11 as the indicative plenary date.
MEPs involved in the negotiations have nevertheless raised concerns about the timetable for the committee stage. The shadow rapporteurs’ meeting took place only recently, while parliamentarians have had limited time to assess the latest compromise language and prepare alternative amendments.
Critics of a rapid committee vote argue that there is insufficient time for meaningful political discussion before the planned SANT vote on September 28.
The timetable will therefore be closely watched. A committee vote at the end of September would leave the negotiators little room for another round of compromises if the current text proves too divisive.
