In accordance with the subsidiarity principle, it is the responsibility of each Member State to implement its own health policy, but there are areas where Member States can not act alone effectively (i.e. reducing marketing pressure on children) or where Members States can learn a lot from each other.

Thus, the overall aim of the Conference is to support Member States and stakeholders to work more efficiently in addressing the burden of NCDs, using innovative cooperations and governance structures. The conference, by bringing together leading European stakeholders with a common objective, will provide Member States and other stakeholders with a forum for sharing information, resources, best practise and expertise in primary prevention by addressing three of the key health determinants (nutrition, physical activity and tobacco control). The Conference should also help identifying common actions at EU level that can provide added-value to national efforts.

In addition, the Conference aims to reduce health inequalities existing between Member States by giving a particular attention to Central and Eastern European countries and new Member States.

Considering
- the diversity of national public health systems in the European Union;
- that the action plans of Member States are not widely disseminated;
- that public health indicators of new Member States and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries are similar to each other and far behind those of the EU-15

the specific objectives of the Conference are:
1. to present effective public health systems and sustainable action plans;
2. to identify and share best practices and know-how at EU, national and local levels;
3. to promote interdisciplinary cooperation and exchange of experiences between experts working in three different areas (nutrition, physical activity, tobacco control);
4. to provide an opportunity for new Member States and Central and Eastern European countries to present their activities.
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1. To increase the awareness of policy makers, that education and the everyday school life play a crucial role in promoting health and wellbeing and in ensuring equity in health. For this to be successful, commitment to strong political support of the health-promoting schools approach in Europe is needed.

2. To contribute to the further development, implementation and evaluation of effective strategies and policies concerning school-based health promotion in Europe.

3. To contribute to strengthening the evidence base and encourage knowledge building through exchange of research-based evidence as well as experience of good practice among politicians, health and education practitioners, researchers, non-governmental organizations, and youth organizations across Europe, in facilitating actions for the development of sustainable health investments among children and young people in the school setting.

4. To identify and discuss the links between school-based health promotion, development of citizenship competencies, child`s rights and health literacy of children and young people. Furthermore, to discuss how are these links related to improving early childhood education and care, and to addressing the problem of early school leaving.

5. To strengthen the commitment of the EU member states, the EEA countries and the Candidate countries to addressing inequities in health through better education, with a strong structural health promotion dimension focusing on health determinants, capabilities, social and cultural capital by putting these issues high on political and research agenda.

6. To contribute to supporting the European countries in developing effective strategies, policies, high quality research, as well as good practices on addressing inequity in health through school health promotion.
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