MEPs back EU heart health strategy but critics warn Brussels is missing the “real drivers” of disease

The European Parliament’s Public Health Committee has adopted its response to the EU’s cardiovascular health plan, backing prevention, early detection, and action against risk factors for heart disease and stroke.

The report, approved on June 24 by 38 votes to two, with one abstention, responds to the European Commission’s Safe Hearts Plan, unveiled in December 2025. It calls for a coordinated EU approach to preventing cardiovascular disease, including related conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and obesity.

Rapporteur Romana Jerković, an S&D MEP from Croatia, said: “For too long, Europe has focused on paying for the consequences of cardiovascular disease instead of addressing its causes. This report marks a shift towards prevention. It calls for tougher and more progressive action on the commercial drivers of poor health, from the marketing of novel nicotine products to children to the lack of transparency around alcohol and unhealthy foods. If we are serious about reducing Europe’s biggest killer, we need public health policies driven by evidence, not by commercial interests.”

Cardiovascular disease remains Europe’s biggest killer, and policymakers increasingly acknowledge that health systems cannot simply pay for the consequences after disease has taken hold. But the vote has also sharpened debate over whether the EU is still misdiagnosing the problem.

In a June 17 VoxBox interview, Czech MEP Ondřej Dostál argued that Brussels focuses too heavily on political intervention and taxation, while failing to confront the lifestyle, diet, and childhood health factors driving Europe’s disease burden. Dostál said the EU should not act as a “good mother” telling citizens what to consume, but should support member states, doctors, families, schools, and local health systems.

His comments point to the central tension in the EU’s health strategy. The SANT Committee report calls for action on tobacco, nicotine products, harmful alcohol consumption, healthy diets, physical activity, front-of-pack nutrition labelling, ultra-processed foods, and energy drinks. MEPs also backed cardiovascular health checks, CPR training, and an inequalities dashboard.

But critics argue that Europe’s flagship health strategies still do not place enough emphasis on the upstream drivers of cardiovascular disease and cancer: obesity, metabolic dysfunction, ultra-processed foods, added sugars, alcohol, sedentary lifestyles, and poor childhood nutrition.

The scale of the challenge is difficult to ignore. More than half of EU adults are overweight, and around one in four children aged seven to nine is overweight, including around one in ten living with obesity. Childhood obesity carries long-term cardiovascular risk through hypertension, insulin resistance, chronic inflammation, and poor metabolic health. A heart health strategy that does not put childhood obesity at its centre risks treating symptoms rather than causes.

Dr. Hena Ibrahim, a pediatrician and former MedGlobal interim executive director, made a similar argument in a recent EU Reporter op ed piece, dated 24 June. She warned that children are increasingly presenting with elevated blood pressure, early metabolic dysfunction, excess weight gain, and diets dominated by ultra-processed snacks and energy drinks.

The dietary drivers are clear. Ultra-processed foods high in added sugars, sodium, refined carbohydrates, and processed ingredients have become staples of many children’s diets. Processed meats remain widely consumed despite links to colorectal cancer and cardiovascular disease. Energy drinks, often loaded with sugar and caffeine, are increasingly popular among adolescents and have been associated with elevated blood pressure and heart rhythm problems.

Alcohol is another major risk factor, with nearly 300,000 deaths annually in the EU linked to alcohol-related disease. Added sugars continue to fuel obesity, diabetes, and fatty liver disease. Illicit youth vaping, often involving unregulated imported products, has also become a growing concern.

The problem is not that the EU is ignoring prevention. The SANT Committee’s report moves in that direction. The deeper criticism is that EU policy remains uneven. Tobacco is heavily regulated and taxed on the basis of health risk, while other major drivers of disease often face fragmented or limited responses.

The International Monetary Fund has argued that fiscal policy can better align prices with health harms. Supporters of a stronger prevention agenda say that logic should apply more consistently across major risk categories. Dostál argues that taxation should remain a national competence and citizens should be guided by doctors and public health professionals.

Parliament is expected to vote on the report in September. But the June 24 committee vote made one thing clear: Europe is moving toward prevention, yet still faces pressure to define prevention more honestly.

If the EU is serious about reducing cardiovascular disease and cancer, it must place obesity, metabolic health, healthy nutrition, and childhood prevention at the centre of its strategy. Without that shift, Europe risks adopting health plans that are ambitious on paper but too narrow to reverse its growing disease burden.