EU Cardiovascular Health INI Report falls short

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

Weak Committee on public health’s outcome fails to deliver needed ambition.

Following the vote in the European Parliament’s Committee on Public Health, Eat Europe and Farm Europe strongly distance themselves from the adopted report, arguing that it falls far short of the ambition and coherence needed.

We welcomed the EU Cardiovascular Health Plan presented by Commissioner Várhelyi in December 2025 and have followed the work of the Committee in the expectation that it would strengthen the approach put forward by the European Commission. However, the final text fails to meet this objective and represents a missed opportunity.

Concerns are particularly strong on Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs), where the adopted text remains limited and fails to reflect the growing scientific and policy attention to their role in non-communicable diseases. In line with positions previously expressed in communications by Eat Europe and Farm Europe, we believe a more explicit and science-based approach to UPFs is needed to properly address dietary risk factors for cardiovascular health. 

While we acknowledge a few positive elements – such as the recognition that the main risk factor is alcohol abuse rather than consumption per se, and the emphasis on nutrition education, balanced procurement policies, and the recognition of the role of red meat within a balanced diet – we consider these insufficient to address the broader weaknesses of the report.

The text also introduces an unbalanced framing of dietary patterns, weakens ambition on energy drinks, and reopens controversial debates on front-of-pack labelling, including approaches that risk indirectly reviving wrong and misleading logic for which a few multinational corporations and member states were lobbying fiercely. Concerns remain regarding additional labelling requirements and warning labels for the wine sector, which risk creating disproportionate burdens without clear public health gains.

Overall, the adopted report reflects a lowest-common-denominator compromise that lacks strategic clarity and does not provide sufficiently effective guidance for cardiovascular disease prevention and healthy lifestyle promotion.

We will continue to work with Members of the European Parliament ahead of the plenary vote to strengthen the text and ensure a more evidence-based and courageous approach to cardiovascular health policy.