The European Comparative Alcohol Study (ECAS) studied alcohol consumption, policies, and alcohol-related problems in European Union countries and Norway in the second half of the twentieth century. ECAS also included six nationally representative surveys conducted in spring of 2000 in selected European countries: Finland, France, Germany (excluding former East German), Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Methodology and questionnaires were aligned so that data collected across the countries would be comparable. The survey collected information on drinking habits from about 1,000 randomly-selected participants in each country.