Luxembourg (dpa) - Graphic warnings on tobacco products and a
phase-out of menthol cigarettes on Friday moved a step closer to
becoming reality in the European Union, after health ministers struck
a deal on the contentious new measures meant to curb smoking.
"We cannot have a situation where we have a product that kills
700,000 Europeans every year, looking to replace those customers with
children because that's where the advertising is focused," said Irish
Health Minister James Reilly, who chaired the ministers' talks.
"Our duty of care has to be for the people of Europe," he added.
"Smoking is one of the greatest preventable, avoidable threats to
people's health."
The new measures, which now have to be approved by the European
Parliament to become law, would force tobacco firms to cover 65 per
cent of the front and back of their packages with health warnings.
Photos of diseases caused by smoking would have to be included.
EU member states would be free to go even further by introducing
plain cigarette packaging if they wish to do so. Ireland has
indicated that it may pursue such a measure.
Flavourings would be banned, leading to a gradual phase-out of all
menthol cigarettes except for those with very low menthol content.
Slim cigarettes would be sold in less attractive packaging, while
E-cigarettes would be regulated to curb their sales amid doubts over
their purported lower toxicity.
"The main thrust (of the new rules) is that tobacco should look
like tobacco ... and that tobacco should taste like tobacco as
well," EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg said.
German State Secretary Robert Kloos called the reform package a
"balanced compromise."
But the tobacco industry has been vehemently lobbying against the
measures. Eastern European countries are also sceptical, with
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania voting against the
new rules on Friday, according to diplomats.
But they were unable to muster a blocking minority. EU officials
indicated that opponents had been concerned about their tobacco
industries being affected.
"There will be negative economic consequences if, as is the
target, there is a reduction of 2 per cent of smokers over the next
five years," Borg acknowledged. "But individuals ... will invest the
money they used to spend on smoking in other areas of the economy."
"We have to reduce our finance ministries' dependence on the
income that tobacco gives," Reilly had told his fellow ministers
earlier. "We know that it costs us much more than it ever brings in.
We know that it kills more people than it ever employs."
Sweden has nevertheless fought to preserve its ability to offer
the oral tobacco product snus, which is banned in the rest of the EU.
The new measures would maintain that arrangement.
The product had been at the centre of a scandal that led to the
resignation of EU health commissioner John Dalli last year.
Investigators said he did nothing to stop a lobbyist from asking a
snus producer for money to influence the new tobacco rules.
"It's also our priority to deter our minors and to reduce all
tobacco use in our country," said Sweden's minister for the children
and the elderly, Maria Larsson. "But it's also a necessity to have
the right to decide ourself about snus."
Under the best of circumstances, the new EU rules will not come
into effect for at least another three years, given the remaining
legislative process and the time member states receive to transpose
EU legislation, Borg said.
Copyright 2013 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH