European Parliament backs cancer resolution, rejects stronger alcohol wording

15.02.2026 - On 12 February 2026, the European Parliament adopted a plenary resolution for World Cancer Day, but only after a very specific fight over one short line about alcohol.

The resolution itself, formally adopted on 12 February 2026, lists “harmful alcohol consumption” among the main risk factors for cancer.  It also includes a separate recital on alcohol, Recital D, which in the final adopted text says that the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer “seek to raise awareness of the link between alcohol and cancer”.

That “raise awareness” wording is where the politics concentrated.

Two amendments tried to rewrite Recital D

One proposed rewrite, Amendment 1, was tabled by Tilly Metz on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. It would have replaced the awareness language with a sharper claim that WHO concludes “no level of alcohol consumption is safe with regard to cancer prevention” and that this evidence should be reflected in prevention policy design.

A second proposed rewrite, Amendment 2, came from Christophe Clergeau and Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis on behalf of the S&D Group. It aimed for a middle formulation, stating that “various elements of evidence provided by the WHO and the IARC make a clear link between alcohol and cancer”.

Both amendments targeted the same spot, Recital D. Both were voted in plenary as part of the World Cancer Day joint resolution package.

What the vote results show

According to Parliament’s official “Results of votes” document for the sitting (VOT), Amendment 1 was rejected by 215 in favour, 282 against, 35 abstentions, and it was a roll-call vote (RCV).

Amendment 2 was also rejected, but the VOT document does not mark it as a roll-call vote. In practice, that means Parliament publishes the aggregate totals, but there is no official public list of how each individual MEP voted on that item.

With both rewrites defeated, Parliament then voted on Recital D as originally drafted, and adopted it by 363 in favour, 150 against, 33 abstentions, again as a roll-call vote.

Finally, the resolution as a whole was adopted by 427 in favour, 15 against, 93 abstentions.

The roll-call list shows that the vote did not fall neatly along traditional left-right lines. Members from several political groups, including the EPP, Renew Europe and S&D, appeared on both sides of the amendment. That pattern often reflects national context as much as ideology, though the roll-call itself does not explain why individuals broke ranks.

The scientific hook behind the wording fight

Amendment 1 explicitly anchored itself to WHO’s “no safe level” language.  In the WHO/Europe news release it cites, WHO states: “when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health.”

That same WHO/Europe text also says alcohol “has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen” by IARC, and that alcohol “causes at least seven types of cancer”.

From the IARC side, an IARC World Cancer Report chapter describes positive associations between alcohol consumption and multiple cancer sites (for example mouth, pharynx, oesophagus, colorectum, liver, larynx, pancreas, female breast), reflecting the established evidence base that underpins IARC’s carcinogen evaluations.

What these sources do and do not say is the key nuance. WHO’s “no safe amount” sentence is about alcohol’s effects on health in general, not a legal standard, and not a claim that every sip causes cancer in an individual.  At the same time, WHO and IARC are explicit that alcohol is carcinogenic and linked to multiple cancers at the population level.

What was finally adopted, in plain terms

The adopted Recital D stayed with the softer formulation: WHO and IARC “seek to raise awareness of the link”.  The Parliament did not adopt either of the two alternative wordings that would have strengthened the claim in Recital D.

Still, the adopted resolution repeatedly situates alcohol alongside tobacco as a prevention-relevant risk factor, and calls for action to reduce exposure to risk factors including harmful alcohol consumption.

Why this matters in the bigger picture

This vote is a miniature of a recurring EU-level tension: broad consensus on fighting cancer and supporting prevention, combined with recurring battles over how bluntly institutions should talk about alcohol risk. On paper, Parliament endorsed a prevention framing that includes alcohol among cancer risk factors.  Politically, it rejected language that would have pushed the WHO “no safe level” message directly into the text of a cancer-prevention resolution, even though WHO and IARC materials clearly state alcohol’s carcinogenicity and its links to several cancers.  The split shown in the roll-call lists signals that the argument is not only left versus right, but also internal within large groups like the EPP, which matters because those internal lines often determine whether similar language survives in future votes.

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Key documents

European Parliament adopted text (final resolution), (12 February 2026) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2026-0052_EN.pdf 

European Parliament amendments (Recital D)

Amendment 1 (Verts/ALE, Tilly Metz) (dated 10 February 2026) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-10-2026-0112-AM-001-001_EN.pdf 

Amendment 2 (S&D, Christophe Clergeau and Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis) (dated 10 February 2026) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-10-2026-0112-AM-002-002_EN.pdf 

European Parliament vote results (VOT), sitting of 12 February 2026 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-10-2026-02-12-VOT_EN.pdf 

European Parliament roll-call votes (RCV), sitting of 12 February 2026 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-10-2026-02-12-RCV_EN.html 

WHO/Europe statement used in the amendment debate (4 January 2023) https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health 

IARC source (World Cancer Report chapter excerpt on alcohol associations with cancer sites) https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/WCR_2014_Chapter_2-3.pdf