The report, which was created for the European Commission and published last week, also recommends a pan-European campaign to reduce drinking and driving.
It is one of many reports commissioned ahead of the release of an EC Communication on Alcohol and Health this summer.
Recommendations suggest that alcohol containers should carry warnings, determined by health bodies, describing the harmful effects of alcohol.
The report comes at a key time for the alcohol industry, which has faced regular headlines focusing on the economic cost of binge drinking to the UK.
In February, Diageo launched a responsible-drinking TV ad campaign to encourage drinkers to reconsider their attitudes to alcohol by showing the negative effects of binge drinking (Marketing, 15 February).
This is unlikely to be enough to prevent further regulation, and the report states that educational interventions 'show little effectiveness in reducing the harm done by alcohol and are not an alternative to measures that regulate the alcohol market'.
At present, there is no comprehensive alcohol policy document or strategy for the European Union; the EC is seeking a Europe-wide stance on alcohol regulation because of the increase of cross-border marketing.
The IAS research estimates that the tangible costs of alcohol to the EU were EUR125bn in 2003, EUR59bn of which was attributable to 'lost productivity through absenteeism, unemployment and lost working years through premature death'.
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