Recent research showed that “awareness of the link between alcohol and cancer among Europeans needs to be improved and that it could be significantly enhanced by use of a health warning giving information about alcohol as a cause of breast and colon cancer,” it said.

The WHO said that cancer-specific warnings were more likely to prompt discussions about alcohol risks and encourage reconsideration of alcohol consumption compared to other warnings.

It said that labelling achieved the greatest reach while representing low cost for governments.

The WHO noted that per capita alcohol consumption among adults in the EU in 2019 was twice the world average, with one in 19 adults dying from alcohol-attributable causes and three out of every 10 alcohol-attributable deaths due to cancers.

Europeans older than 15 consumed 9.2 litres of pure alcohol per capita, well above the global average of 5.5 litres, it said.

Around 800,000 people in the European region die from alcohol-related causes per year – almost 2,200 per day, and while cancer is the commonest cause of death, public awareness of the link is low, it said.