Brussels, 11/07/13 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 10 July, the European Parliament's environment, public health and food safety committee amended the draft directive on tobacco. The amended draft legislation was approved by 50 votes to 13, with 8 abstentions. It amends the European Commission proposal in several areas and it takes a tougher line than the Council (see EUROPE 10842) on marketing strategies developed by tobacco manufacturers. “The focus is to prevent the industry from recruiting new smokers among the young”, said rapporteur Linda McAvan (S&D, UK).
29% of young people smoke. The World Health Organisation has shown that since 2005, the trend has been going up. Despite action taken by the public authorities, smoking in the EU kills around 700,000 people per year.
The draft legislation aims to make smoking less attractive. It bans the use of additives, flavourings, vitamins, caffeine and taurine, which are claimed to have health benefits. Carl Schylter (Greens/EFA, Sweden) welcomed this decision which “goes further than the initial Commission proposal”. Nonetheless, he regretted that the proposals on the introduction of neutral packaging, which were aimed at reducing tobacco's attractiveness, had not been voted on.
Instead, the public health committee chose to increase the surface area for combined advertising (text and image) on health, giving them 75% of the areas on the front and backs of packets. Frédérique Ries (ALDE, Belgium) stressed that “clear and visible adverts… can encourage consumers to think twice before buying cigarettes”. The initial proposal granted a 70% surface area, while the Council wanted 65%.
MEPs on the committee considered that packaging should not promote the belief that certain products have a positive effect on lifestyle or health. In order to prevent misleading information, data on tar and nicotine should be more visible and much of the data on these factors are also often false.
There is no question either on attempting to encourage consumers by way of their original packaging, by way of lipstick motifs, for example. Slim cigarettes and packets of less than 20 are often sought by women and young smokers and should also be banned. Finally, in an effort to tackle the illegal tobacco trade, packets will have to be identified by markings that enable them to be traced from producer to the initial distributor.
The main point of disagreement focuses on the question of electronic cigarettes. Covered by the jurisdiction of European legislation on medicines, these cigarettes will be subject to market authorisation and accessible in chemists on prescription. Although the Greens say they are satisfied with such a measure, Chris Davies MEP (ALDE, United Kingdom) said that this was regrettable and that E-cigarettes could help people overcome their dependency as opposed to other nicotine substitution therapies that had failed in the past. He added that they could possibly save millions of lives. This argument obtained a hearing at the Parliamentary committee because it calls on member states to further reflect on sales outlets for these products, in addition to pharmacies.
Martin Callanan (ECR, United Kingdom) was concerned about the economic impact and argued that many jobs depended on electronic cigarette production and that making the authorisation procedures so difficult would mean that many small shops would have to close down.
Following the negative opinion given by the industry committee and the reservations expressed by the agriculture committee, which also rejected a ban on slim and menthol cigarettes, the final vote will be a close run thing. It will take place in September during the European Parliament plenary in Strasbourg. (LM/transl.fl)