Czech Republic: Parliament May Not Pass Ban on Smoking in Restaurants, Health Minister Says

Source from:  Prague Daily Monitor (cz)  03/26/2013

The Czech government and parliament may not approve the Health Minister Leos Heger's bill that would ban smoking in all restaurants, Heger (TOP 09) admitted in the Questions of Vaclav Moravec TV discussion yesterday.
 
The European Commission (EC) may not push through its version of the anti-smoking directive to ban flavoured cigarettes and enlarge the warning against smoking consequences on cigarette packets either, MEP Zuzana Roithova (for Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL)) indicated in the TV debate.
 
"If the bill does not make it through, nothing can be done. However, if only three-quarters of it make it through, it will be progress," Heger told public Czech Television (CT) on his draft anti-smoking legislation.
 
According to the bill, smoking would be fully banned in all restaurants as of 2014, except for their outdoor service areas.
 
The sale of alcohol and tobacco product in automatic vending machines and stores on wheels would be banned too.
 
The legislation would also ban the producers from adding vitamins to cigarettes "to make them healthier," Heger said.
 
Besides, it would introduce a fine of up to one million crowns for selling alcohol and cigarettes to youth under 18 years and up to two million crowns for their sale to children under 15.
 
The government is to discuss Heger' proposal in April. If it approves the bill, the Chamber of Deputies is to vote on it.
 
The Czech government, the Chamber of Deputies and, most recently, the Senate, the lower and upper houses of parliament, stood up against the above mentioned EC's anti-smoking directive.
 
Polish deputies and the German government opposed it previously as well.
 
The European Parliament is to vote on it.
 
Roithova, physician by profession and former health minister, indicated that the directive's version was not final.
 
She said she would vote for its balanced wording. However, she supports the planned ban on flavoured cigarettes, which, she said, attracted the youth.
 
Roithova also noted that practically all governments included the fight against smoking in their long-term programmes, but they were not consistent in its implementation over high revenues of billions of crowns from the cigarettes sales.
 
($1=19.956 crowns) Enditem