The EU Safe Hearts Plan, adopted by the Commission on 16 December 2025, sets a clear ambition: achieve a 25% cut on premature CVD mortality by 2035. Gender equality and tobacco control are two decisive levers to deliver on this ambition, but Europe requires a diligent and meticulous approach to turn commitments for better cardiovascular health into concrete action.
Cardiovascular disease remains Europe's leading cause of death, claiming over 3.9 million lives each year and costing the EU economy €282 billion annually. This event aims to provide a platform for discussions on how to operationalise the EU’s ambition to address the underlying factors that lay behind these figures and are responsible for lives lost to cardiovascular disease in Europe.
Organised under the auspices of the Cypriot Presidency of the Council of the EU and in collaboration with the European Society of Cardiology, this event will bring together policymakers, clinicians, patients, and civil society to advance implementation of the Safe Hearts Plan through both gender equity measures that address the systemic under- and misdiagnosis, delayed care, and underrepresentation in research that women with CVD continue to face, but also the modernisation of tobacco legislation needed to face the growing threat that novel and emerging nicotine products continue to pose to the EU's ambition of a tobacco-free generation by 2040.
With the European Commission having set the course, this is the moment for leaders across sectors to come together and drive coordinated, evidence-based implementation at both EU and national levels. We invite you to join us for this timely and instrumental exchange.
Attendees will be welcome from 08:30 for coffee and breakfast and the discussion will be followed by a networking lunch.
Please join us and stay tuned for more details! You can register here and find a provisional agenda of the event here.