Alcohol consumption is a major cause of cancer in the European Union (EU). In 2022 one quarter of the 700 000 alcohol-attributable cancer cases worldwide occurred in Europe, where alcohol consumption remains the highest globally. The International Agency for Research on Cancer Handbooks of Cancer Prevention Volumes 20A and 20B provide a comprehensive review and evaluation of the evidence on the cancer-preventive potential of, respectively, reducing or ceasing alcohol consumption and of populationlevel alcohol policy interventions. Reduction or cessation of alcohol consumption is associated with reduced cancer risk; there is sufficient evidence of this association in the case of oral and oesophageal cancers, and also in the case of the mechanisms through which alcohol causes cancers in humans. Furthermore, there is sufficient evidence that alcohol taxes, minimum pricing, restrictions on physical availability, strong marketing bans and coordinated alcohol policy interventions lead to a reduction in alcohol consumption. A complementary modelling study estimates that implementing these policies across all 27 EU Member States could avert up to 9200 cancer cases annually, depending on the policy scenario. These findings demonstrate that population-level alcohol policies represent an underused tool for cancer prevention in the EU and should be integrated within EU and national cancer control frameworks.