With commissioner-designate for health John Dalli due to appear before the European Parliament credentials committee in January, Linda McAvan, co-chair of the Parliament health group, gave notice last week that the committee’s MEPs would be grilling him on his plans in the field of heart health.

MEPs have called on the EU’s member states to do more to combat the growing threat of heart disease.

Members of the European Parliament’s MEP heart group met in Brussels on Wednesday and heard from a range of experts that cardiovascular disease (CVD) was the EU’s leading cause of death, despite being largely preventable.

Ms McAvan, head of what was the largest forum on health in the Parliament of the last legislature, told the audience at the event that cardiovascular disease was the number one killer in Europe, but said policymakers can help to combat the disease through strong EU action.

The MEP heart group has seen its numbers fall from 81 to 38 following June’s parliamentary elections. But Ms McAvan and her co-chair colleague Dirk Sterckx called on their fellow deputies to back the group’s cause by signing up to a call for action on heart health. The group wants to press the European Commission to adopt a comprehensive CVD prevention strategy.

Referring to Parliament’s 2007 resolution on action to tackle CVD, which was approved by an “overwhelming majority” (607 votes for, two against and nine abstentions), Mr Sterckx said that MEPs were “willing to combat cardiovascular disease and promote heart health”. However, he added that “policymakers must engage actively” as “the battle is far from finished”. “A comprehensive strategy on cardiovascular health is still needed,” he warned.

Speakers at the event told the audience that the need for action was clear, both in terms of economic and personal costs. In total, CVD is estimated to cost the EU over €192 billion every year – roughly four times the total spent on the bloc’s annual agriculture budget.

It is also the EU’s number one killer, claiming the lives of over two million people every year – and 4.3 million in Europe as a whole – accounting for 45 per cent of female deaths and 38 per cent of male deaths. But as many as 80 per cent of the deaths caused by the disease are preventable, the audience was told.

Professor Simon Capewell of Liverpool University said the existence of CVD “has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with diet”, explaining that the prevalence of the disease has increased throughout the world as the westernised, American diet has “swept” the globe.

Increased blood pressure and high cholesterol, two of the disease’s key risk factors, are directly related to the levels of salt and trans-fat in the modern diet. “Our diet is a catastrophe for cardiovascular disease,” said Prof. Capewell.

But strong policies have worked in countries such as Finland and Denmark, he said, with studies proving a direct link between a higher level of “nannying” by the state and lower instances of CVD.

Ms McAvan insisted that policymakers could make a difference in tackling the disease, as strong action had been proved to cause dramatic improvements in heart health in a relatively short period of time.

With obesity levels rising across the EU, Prof. Capewell said the EU and national governments had a moral responsibility to take action now. “We have a moral duty to look after our children… It goes beyond politics. This is humanity,” he said.