The Elsa Project ran between 2005 and 2007, for up to date information on the effects of alcohol marketing and alcohol marketing regulations, please check out www.EUCAM.info

Welcome to the ELSA website

This is the official web site of the ELSA project,a European project, co-financed by the European Commission and focussed on Regulating Alcohol Marketing in Europe.

ELSA means the Enforcement of national Laws and Self-regulation on advertising and marketing of Alcohol.

The use of alcohol is generally accepted in Europe. Especially the use of alcohol by young people has increased significantly over time. One of the instruments to control the excessive use of alcohol by youngsters is the restriction of alcohol advertisement and alcohol promotion. Consequently, the European Council has developed a recommendation with the aim of preventing the confrontation of youngsters with attractive alcoholic products and commercial communications.


The main objective of the ELSA project is to examine the degree of implementation of the Council Recommendation. The project is co-financed by the European Commission. Other organisations that contributed financially to the project are: The Foundation for Prevention of Addiction, The Netherlands), The Alliance House Foundation (United Kingdom), Actis (Norwegian Policy Network on Alcohol and Drugs and Alkokutt (Norway). 23 Member States of the European Union and Norway have participated in the ELSA project. The project is conducted from 2005-2007 and coordinated by STAP (National Foundation for Alcohol Prevention in the Netherlands).


Participating countries are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.


The results of the ELSA project has been evaluated objectively by the following six experts: Prof. Thomas Babor (University of Connecticut Health Center, Dept. of Community Medicine and Health Care, USA), Dr. Joan Colom (Director of the Program on Substance Abuse, Health Department of the Government of Catalonia, Spain), Prof. Gerard Hastings (Director of the Institute of Social Marketing and Centre for Tobacco Control Research, University of Stirling and the Open University, Scotland, UK), Dr. Ann Hope (National Alcohol Policy Advisor, Department of Health and Children, Ireland), Dr. Bas van den Putte (The Amsterdam School of Communication Research, the Netherlands) and Mr. Anders Ulstein (ACTIS - Norwegian Policy Network on Alcohol and Drug, Norway).

NB The final reports of the ELSA project are available now! You can find them under 'Deliverables'.

Translations of some of the ELSA reports are available now!