Mr President, this report concerns the proposal for a Council recommendation on drinking of alcohol by children and adolescents. Parliament has been asked to give its opinion on this issue. Our report will not become a binding piece of European legislation but will literally act as a recommendation to Member States. I should like at this stage to thank the Swedish presidency for its interest in this issue and for organising the successful Stockholm Conference. The format of allowing young people to make their views known on an equal footing with health ministers made the dialogue all the more interesting. We know the growing evidence shows that children and adolescents are starting drinking at a younger age and drinking at worrying levels at a younger age. The problem is growing not only in the northern states but also in the southern states. France and Spain report growing problems of adolescent drunkenness, associated with fights, violence, truancy, theft and illegal drugs. Recent surveys show that the UK, Denmark, Finland, France and Sweden report the highest proportions of boys and girls who have been drunk at or younger than 13. Scotland, which I represent in this Parliament, has the highest rate of binge drinking amongst 15-year-olds. The gender gap is also closing, with more girls reporting having been drunk at 15 in Denmark, Finland, England, Scotland and Wales. Yet the simple fact is that children and adolescents are just more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol than adults. The rise of drinking to excess by children and adolescents has serious implications for future health. Drinking behaviour, which occurs during youth, can lead to similar patterns in adulthood. Certainly many colleagues here will know the consequences of drinking to excess. But in terms of misuse of alcohol by adolescents, the link between binge drinking, unplanned pregnancy, sexually-transmitted diseases, crime and road-traffic accidents cannot be denied. You need only go to your local police station or hospital to see the evidence. What are the solutions? Information, education and health promotion are critical in the fight against under-age binge drinking, as are health promotion policies targeted at children, parents, teachers and carers, better labelling on alcohol products, integration of adolescent policies. In preparing this report I contacted over a hundred schools and fifty youth organisations in Scotland. Townhill primary school in Dunfermline, where I live, summed up the need for more education when it found that most children in the class were not aware of the health and social problems associated with alcohol misuse. This leads me on to my second point, an important one. More research is needed into the nature, scale and causes of this growing trend in binge drinking by children and adolescents. We need to improve data collection and share information. Kinghorn primary school in Fife thought that the research issue was important and that an e-mail network of pupils allowing them to discuss and explore the issues was critical. Thirdly, the issue of selling to under-age people is also an important one. In many countries there are existing laws which should prevent this from happening. However, as we all know, this still goes on. The rise of bootlegged alcohol in many Member States is also a factor. Proper implementation of existing laws in Member States could go some way to prevent the selling to children and adolescents. On codes of conduct: much of the alcohol industry has signed up to voluntary codes of conduct and has self-regulation. Much of the industry has tried to take a responsible view to this issue. However, there is a real concern among parents, teachers and young people themselves that not enough is being done on advertising. When you see pictures of babies in beer-logo babygrows, no wonder people have cause for concern. Powrie primary school in Dundee asked that alcohol should be made ‘uncool’; TV ads should show vomiting and hang-overs. Many members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection supported the move for more binding regulation, and the debate continues. In conclusion, the need for joint action on education and research is critical in the fight against binge drinking by children and adolescents. At St Elizabeth primary school in Hamilton they noted that there is more to life than the aspiration to get as drunk as possible in as little time as possible, with as big an audience as possible. Finally, in the words of the World Health Organisation's European Charter on Alcohol: 'All children and adolescents have the right to grow up in an environment protected from the negative consequences of alcohol consumption and to the extent possible from the promotion of alcoholic beverage'. I hope my colleagues will support this report.

Political group: PSE