Europe: EU Commission Unveils Plans to Cut Death Toll from Smoking

Source from:  The Parliament Magazine (be)  12/20/2012

Cigarette packets will in future have to display "large" pictorial health warnings under commission proposals unveiled on Wednesday.

Under the proposals announced by EU health commissioner Tonio Borg the images will have to cover at least 75 per cent of the front and back of packages.

The commission also wants to ban all ingredients in cigarettes with a "strong characteristic" flavour, such as chocolate or vanilla.

This, said Borg, is particularly designed to deter making cigarettes attractive to young people.

He went on to say that the ban on snus, a smokeless tobacco, will continue although Sweden, where the majority of the product is made, will be allowed to continue producing it.

Under the plan, a 'tracing and tracking' system will be introduced in a bid to crack down on 'cross border distant sales' of tobacco products.

These are the main measures contained in the commission's revision of the 2001 tobacco products directive.

The proposal, outlined at a news conference on Wednesday in Brussels, still needs approval by both parliament and member states. Borg said that, if approved, he hopes they will be introduced within three to four years.

The newly-appointed Maltese official said, "This is a balanced and fair proposal.

"I promised at my parliamentary hearing that the revision of the directive would be adopted by the end of January so we are six weeks ahead of schedule. It is not often that a politician can say that."

Borg pointed out that each year 700,000 people in Europe die from smoking, the equivalent, he said, of a city the size Frankfurt "being wiped out" every year.

He said that smokers live, on average, 14 years less than people who do not smoke and that some €25m is spent in Europe each year on treating smoking-related diseases.

He added, "The aim with this proposal is not to ban smoking but regulate it in a way that consumers know what they are smoking."

Reaction to the announcement was swift with parliament's Greens party saying they "welcomed" the proposals.

They said the plan was "an important start but cautioned that the provisions on packaging and additives need to be improved".

Green public health spokesperson Carl Schlyter, a Swedish MEP, said, "After months of controversy and allegations of inappropriate industry lobbying, we welcome the fact that this crucial legislation for public health is now on the table.

"A transparent and democratic legislative process must now follow, with the interests of public health and EU citizens as the guiding principle."

Tobacco is the largest single cause of avoidable death in Europe and strengthening EU rules on packaging and additives must be a top priority with a view to addressing this.

"Today's proposals from the commission are an important first step to this end however both the provisions on packaging and on additives will need to be strengthened during the legislative process.

The European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) said it too "welcomes" the revised directive.

Its secretary general Monika Kosinska said that with stronger measures on e-cigarettes, tobacco flavouring and the shape of cigarettes and packs, "this proposal is good news for the further protection of people's health across Europe".

She said the proposal for pictorial health warnings was to be "applauded as a great move to champion people's health above corporative interests".

But she added that "it fails to propose mandatory plain packaging. As a host of preliminary studies made in Australia and other countries show a mandatory scheme in plain packaging would go to great lengths to prevent young smokers from lighting up their smoking habit in the first place. Plain packaging is in everyone's interest.

"Today, Borg kept his word that the release of the revised tobacco products directive would be one of his priorities when taking up the health and consumer portfolio. This long-delayed revision is a leap towards better health protection of hundreds of millions of people in Europe.

"I hope this is a watershed moment for the relationship between the commission and the tobacco industry, and indicates a move towards greater transparency," she added. Enditem