BSPC ENLARGED STANDING COMMITTEE MEETING
3 June 2010, Vilnius, Lithuania


An intervention by Mr. Viktoras Meižis, Head of the EU Affairs and International Relations Division of the Ministry of Health, Lithuania, on behalf of the NDPHS 


Madam Chairperson,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, let me thank you very much for having Mr Marek Maciejowski, Head of the NDPHS Secretariat, and me at this meeting of the BSPC Enlarged Standing Committee. With permission of the Russian Chairmanship of the NDPHS, I would like to present to you ideas for possible cooperation between the NDPHS and the BSPC in the field of reduction of harmful and hazardous use of alcohol in the Baltic Sea Region.

The BSPC’s commitment to pursuing the goal that also the NDPHS shares, namely sustainable development of the Baltic Sea Region, is highly appreciated. You are all aware of the magnitude of the challenges that our region faces. Many of these challenges can be addressed only through common efforts of all the relevant stakeholders. The purpose of my intervention is to suggest concrete areas for cooperation where our organisations could and should join their forces in order to tackle the problems more effectively. Before presenting the ideas regarding the future cooperation between our organisations, let me briefly introduce you to the NDPHS.

The Northern Dimension area encompasses the territory from the European Arctic and Sub-Arctic to the southern shores of the Baltic Sea, as well as northwest Russia to the east and Iceland and Greenland to the west.

The NDPHS was established in 2003 as one of the structures under the Northern Dimension policy umbrella.

As spelled out in the Declaration concerning the establishment of a NDPHS, which was adopted in 2003, the mission of the NDPHS is to promote the sustainable development of the Northern Dimension area by improving peoples’ health and social well-being.

The Partnership is currently chaired by the Russian Federation and co-chaired by Finland. The NDPHS Partners are eleven governments, the European Commission and eight international organisations.

The Partnership has the following structure: the overall political guidance is provided by the Partnership Annual Conference (PAC) which takes place every year (every second year – at the ministerial level). The Committee of Senior Representatives (CSR) coordinates the activities of the NDPHS between the PACs, it performs the tasks assigned by the PAC and decides on procedural and financial matters relating to the functioning of the NDPHS and its mechanisms. The Expert Groups have an important role in the overall structure of the Partnership: they (i) develop, facilitate and monitor projects and activities in their respective fields, (ii) coordinate and collaborate with relevant stakeholders and (iii) promote networking and facilitate professional exchanges. Currently there are four NDPHS Expert Groups, but at the moment we are in the process of restructuring the existing Expert Groups and establishing several new Task Groups. The Secretariat provides substantive, administrative and other support to the NDPHS structures.

In its work the Partnership focuses on two main areas: 1) reduction of the spread of major communicable diseases and prevention of life-style related non-communicable diseases and 2) improvement of people’s standard of living and promotion of healthy and socially rewarding lifestyles.

The Partnership implements the abovementioned objectives through: engaging in high-level political dialogue, policy shaping, project development and implementation, networking, exchanging expertise and producing and disseminating information.


Madam Chairperson,

Before I proceed to the second part of my intervention, I would like to draw your attention to the new NDPHS Strategy that was adopted at the Partnership’s ministerial-level conference in November last year, and which guides our current work. The Strategy, inter alia, specifies concrete goals as well as the actions which we plan to implement until the end of 2013.

I would also like to stress that these goals and actions are closely correlated with the health-related priorities included in the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region Action Plan and are also fully in line with the public health agreements and declarations adopted by our Member States through the WHO Regional Office for Europe, our Partner Organisation. The NDPHS actively contributed to the development of the EU Strategy Action Plan and presented its proposals in a position paper. These proposals have been included by the European Commission, which subsequently invited our Partnership to assume the role of the coordinator of the health sub-area of the Strategy Action Plan. The NDPHS has accepted the invitation and is currently actively engaged in the implementation of the Strategy.

Let me now draw your attention to the Goal 8 in the NDPHS Strategy, which reads: “Pricing, access to and advertising of alcoholic beverages are changed to direction, which supports the reduction of hazardous and harmful use of alcohol”. As you know, the impact and cost of excessive use of alcohol on our citizens and societies is enormous: alcohol leads to diseases and premature deaths, domestic and other violence, birth defects, neglect of children, social orphans, road, workplace and other accidents, depression, suicides, low productivity at work, crime, etc. The impact on national budgets is immense and is not fully recognized. Alcohol issues are mainly regulated by the national laws and international stakeholders have a relatively small impact on issues such as alcohol pricing, advertising etc. Huge differences in cross-border pricing caused by differences in excise taxation and free exchange of goods have created a pitiful booze-rally at several places of our borders. Experience has shown also that too low alcohol prices in one country force more health and socially oriented countries to embark on discounts in their short-sighted fear of loosing tax revenue. The alcohol policy is almost entirely in the hands of national parliaments, which is why the Partnership would like to approach you as one of the most influential pan-Baltic stakeholders.

Our experts have the knowledge and expertise in dealing with alcohol-related problems and would like to offer for your consideration available policy options. I would like to stress at this point that the solution is neither health education nor focus on alcoholism. Most of the harm happens to “ordinary people” like all of us. The national parliaments at your home countries have the power to reshape the existing policies. Our proposal is to work together to do our best to mitigate the consequences of harmful and hazardous use of alcohol in our region. To that effect, and as the first joint step, we would like to suggest organising a side event back-to-back with the BSPC. The aim of the event would be to present the latest evidence regarding the harm caused by alcohol, to show the examples of the best practice in this field and to propose policy options and actions to be taken by the national parliaments to reduce the harmful effect of the alcohol. We hope that this awareness-raising event would result in a policy change or at least provoke a discussion in the countries in the Baltic Sea Region. As I said, the problem is very serious, and certainly one of the biggest obstacles in reaching our common goal – a healthy, prosperous, safe and attractive Baltic Sea region.

This is the first time that we are raising the issue of cooperation in the field of alcohol with your organisation and no one would expect an immediate answer regarding our possible cooperation. However, we hope that the BSPC would be prepared to seriously consider the Partnership’s invitation to jointly work on the issue of alcohol policy. I am sure that the Russian Chairmanship of the NDPHS would be most pleased to be invited to the 19th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in Mariehamn, Åland Islands, on 29-31 August 2010. This would offer us a possibility to take our dialogue forward.

I would like to thank you for your attention. We will be happy to answer any questions that you might have regarding the NDPHS as well as the presented idea of the collaboration of our organisations.