The number of cancer cases in Europe is rising.

Omissions

• The most recent estimate published before the session date (JRC, December 2025) shows a 1.7% DECREASE in new cancer cases in 2024 compared with 2022, which contradicts a strictly year-on-year 'rising' reading of the claim.
• The upward trend is driven mainly by population ageing and growth rather than by rising age-specific risk; in age-standardised terms cancer incidence has been relatively stable in several EU countries.
• The claim conflates the number of cases (a stock/flow driven by demographics) with risk, and links it to environmental factors without providing data isolating environmental causes.

Sources

• PrimaryEuropean Commission – Joint Research Centre (JRC) news: The latest EU cancer data: what is new?The latest estimates of new cancer cases show a decrease of 1.7% compared with 2022, with 2.7 million new cases in 2024 in the EU Member States.
• PrimaryEuropean Cancer Information System (ECIS/JRC) – 2022 New cancer cases and cancer deaths factsheetMainly driven by an ageing population, the burden of cancer is increasing in the EU, with the number of new cases reaching 2.7 million in 2022.
• PrimaryEuropean Cancer Information System (ECIS/JRC) – Impact of population ageing on the burden of cancer: 2040 estimates factsheetCancer diagnoses in EU/EFTA countries are expecting an increase of 19% by 2040, in the same period cancer deaths are expected to increase by 27%.
• SecondaryEuronews – Cancer in the EU: Cases rising across the bloc as health spending surgesSince 2000, the number of new cancer cases has surged by about 30% for both men and women, with estimates predicting half a million new cases by [2040].