Belgium’s Alcohol Warnings and Nutri-Score Advertising: Why Italy Must Defend the Mediterranean Lifestyle – Italia Oggi
My article published in Italia Oggi warns about a new regulatory front in Europe: alcohol health warnings and the possible use of Nutri-Score in advertising.
The issue is not whether public health matters. It does. The issue is whether Europe wants to promote health through education, responsibility and balanced lifestyles, or through warning labels, bans and social engineering.
Belgium’s Alcohol Warnings and Nutri-Score Advertising: Why Italy Must Defend the Mediterranean Lifestyle
The battle against the mandatory adoption of Nutri-Score at EU level has been won. But the war is far from over.
The Belgian case shows why. Belgium has notified to the European Commission, through the TRIS procedure, a draft Royal Decree on alcohol advertising. Among other measures, it would require health warnings in all advertisements for alcoholic beverages. At the same time, Belgium is reportedly moving toward the use of Nutri-Score in advertising, including the possibility of banning advertisements for products classified as Nutri-Score D or E.
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This is politically significant. If Nutri-Score cannot be imposed as a mandatory front-of-pack label across Europe, some governments may try to introduce it through other channels: advertising, public procurement, schools, public campaigns and commercial communication. Not as a compulsory label on the product, but as a condition for visibility.
That would create a dangerous precedent.
The problem is not informing citizens. Public health needs clear and reliable information. The problem begins when information becomes a prescription. When simplified administrative systems classify food, drinks and lifestyles through a single signal: good or bad, green or red, allowed or discouraged.
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This logic is poor because it reduces health to an algorithm. It is paternalistic because it treats citizens as subjects to be directed rather than individuals to be empowered. And it is culturally hostile to the Mediterranean method, which is not based on the demonisation of single products, but on balance, variety, portion, frequency, conviviality and responsibility.
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Italy must be careful. If this battle is presented only as a defence of wine, beer, cheese, cured meats or Italian products, it will be lost. Supporters of these measures will always use the strongest argument: public health.
Italy’s response must be broader and more ambitious. It should not defend product categories. It should defend a different idea of public health: not warning labels, traffic-light systems, taxes and indirect bans, but education, responsibility, informed choice and balanced lifestyles.
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Alcohol abuse, obesity and non-communicable diseases are real problems. Precisely for this reason, they cannot be addressed through regulatory shortcuts that oversimplify complex behaviours.
The real European alternative to paternalism is not laissez-faire. It is the Mediterranean way of life: balance, quantity, frequency, responsibility and culture.
Italy should intervene firmly in the Belgian TRIS procedure and in the wider European debate. Not only to protect its supply chains, but to defend a principle: public health must not become social engineering.
