Brussels: Retailers Protest against Tobacco Proposals

Source from:  European Voice  01/23/2013

Tobacco sellers say the European Commission's plans put thousands of jobs at risk.

  

Tobacco retailers gathered in Brussels today (22 January) to protest against the European Commission's proposed restrictions on cigarettes. The Commission's proposal to revise the tobacco products directive would require graphic pictorial warnings that cover 75% of cigarette packs, and would ban menthol and 'slim' cigarettes.

Members of the National Federation of Tobacco Retailers, which organised today's protest, said such moves would put 25,000 jobs at risk. 
 
Rainer von Bötticher, the federation's president, said the Commission has not been listening to the concerns of smokers and tobacco retailers. "As the decision was approaching, objections submitted by 85,000 EU citizens in a public consultation...were simply being ignored by policymakers" he said. "Now we need to pursue this avenue to show how big a threat these measures are to the livelihoods of the retailers." 
 
However, health campaigners say that the Commission has spent too much time listening to the tobacco lobby and has not been transparent about these meetings.

The transparency group Corporate Europe Observatory says that requests filed under freedom of information laws reveal that the Commission has met tobacco lobbyists more often than has been publicly revealed. Under an international World Health Organisation agreement signed by the EU, meetings with the tobacco lobby must be publicly disclosed. Enditem