EU Cancer Plan halted by delays in alcohol and tobacco controls, new study finds

23.10.2025 - A comprehensive evaluation of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan (EBCP) reveals that while the ambitious EU initiative has achieved significant progress in cancer care and digital health infrastructure, critical preventive measures, especially those targeting alcohol and tobacco, have been substantially delayed or remain unimplemented.

The study, an implementation assessment commissioned by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), highlights a persistent gap between the plan’s goals and actual legislative action, particularly concerning measures that face resistance from industry interests.

Launched in 2021 with a budget of EUR 4 billion, the EBCP aims to reduce the overall cancer burden and mortality across the European Union. However, the four-year review period (2021-2024) shows that action on harmful alcohol consumption is lagging significantly behind schedule.

Failure to tackle alcohol risks

The document stresses the urgent public health need for stricter alcohol controls, noting that alcohol consumption is responsible for approximately 4% of all new cancer cases in the EU, and crucially, "there is no safe threshold for consumption in relation to cancer prevention."

Despite the EBCP’s explicit commitment to reduce harmful alcohol consumption by at least 10% by 2025, the EPRS study found legislative progress has stalled in key areas:

• Mandatory health warnings and labelling: The European Commission has not yet tabled proposals for mandatory health warnings, or for harmonized on-label ingredient and nutrition information on alcoholic beverages. Currently, only three Member States (France, Lithuania, and Ireland) have adopted legislation requiring health warnings, with Ireland’s law being the most comprehensive.

• Taxation and cross-border purchases: Reviews of EU legislation on alcohol taxation and cross-border purchases have not advanced as planned and remain pending, which risks undermining national pricing policies aimed at reducing consumption.

The study indicates that the slow pace of implementation is driven by persistent lobbying and policy incoherence. Stakeholders pointed to the ongoing, "coordinated influence from the alcohol industry" and political sensitivity around taxation reform as major barriers to effective public health action.

Tobacco-free goal challenged by delays

Similar gaps were identified in achieving the EBCP’s ambitious objective of a "Tobacco-Free Generation" by 2040 (defined as less than 5% tobacco use).

While the EU has funded joint actions to support Member States in implementing tobacco controls, legislative updates to the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) remain pending. Furthermore, despite evidence showing the success of smoke-free environment policies, progress in achieving the ambitious 2040 goal is uneven, with some Member States seeing smoking prevalence increase between 2020 and 2023.

Policy coherence at risk

The assessment utilized country case studies to illustrate the effects of these policy gaps, highlighting Finland as a crucial example of "policy incoherence."

Finland, which has strong cancer screening and tobacco control, recently liberalized alcohol sales, including raising the permitted alcohol content in grocery stores from 5.5% to 8%. The study concluded that this liberalization prioritized economic and consumer convenience over long-term public health impacts, directly challenging the EBCP’s prevention goals.

Overall, the EPRS study finds that while the EBCP has successfully served as a powerful model for future EU action on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and has advanced infrastructure projects, the fragmentation of governance and inconsistency in implementing prevention measures pose a risk to its long-term success in reducing health inequalities.

The study concludes with a set of 17 policy recommendations, urging decision-makers to embed equity more systematically into the plan and to establish clear, sustainable long-term funding and monitoring frameworks for future health initiatives.