Belgium Prepares Probe Into Politico Tobacco Sponsorship

Source from:  EUobserver 06/28/2019

Belgian authorities are investigating whether a sponsorship deal between British American Tobacco (BAT) and EU affairs news website Politico violated tobacco advertising laws.

They are also looking into an event organised in the European Parliament last year, which was sponsored by Japan Tobacco International (JTI).

The cases show how Big Tobacco is continuing to try and test the limits of an EU-wide ban on tobacco advertising, in place since 2003.

Since Monday, the well-read Politico newsletter Playbook has appeared with "supported by British American Tobacco" in the headline.

As is customary in Playbook, several messages of the sponsor-of-the-day appear throughout the newsletter, between editorial content, but identified as "A message from British American Tobacco".

The website also ran banner advertisements of BAT, including on its healthcare section.

"We have made preparations to start an investigation into the BAT sponsorship of Politico. We have taken print-screens of the website and will assess next week what the next steps should be," Paul Van den Meerssche told EUobserver on Thursday (27 June).

Van den Meerssche is lead inspector at the tobacco and alcohol inspection service, part of Belgium's federal health ministry.

He said tobacco companies were "not only testing the limits but often cross them".

"They know they are very powerful and that they have the funds to afford hiring expensive lawyers," said the Belgian.

The EU's rules on tobacco advertising seem straightforward enough.

"The tobacco advertising directive (2003/33/EC) has an EU-wide ban on cross-border tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship in the media other than television," said a spokeswoman for the European Commission.

"The ban covers print media, radio, information society services and sponsorship of events or activities involving or taking place in several member states or otherwise having cross-border effects," she said.

"Similar provisions on cross-border advertising, promotion and sponsorship apply to e-cigarettes, as provided for by the tobacco products directive 2014/40/EU."

The commission did not want to comment on individual cases, referring instead to the national authorities, who are responsible for determining if a ban has been violated.

A commission official said, on condition of anonymity, that the commission had informed the Belgian authorities, because they thought the sponsorship of a newsletter like Politico's Playbook is banned under EU law.

Politico and BAT however both said they were not breaking any laws.  Enditem