Brussels, 01/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has launched a new anti-smoking campaign. European Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou kicked off the campaign on Tuesday in Brussels at the Rond-Point Schuman outside the European Commission's Berlaymont headquarters by unveiling the campaign slogan “HELP - for a Life without Tobacco” on a giant inflatable structure that will tour all 25 European capital cities. The roadshow was devised by a consortium of health experts and PR professionals. It will be followed up by a “HELP” TV and cinema advertising campaign over the summer. The Commission has earmarked EUR 72 million for the new campaign, which will run until 2008 and is aimed primarily at adolescents (age 15-18) and young adults (age 18-30).
At a press conference, Commissioner Kyprianou stressed that “sickness and death due to smoking costs EU countries EUR 100 billion a year” and that “every year, 650,000 EU citizens die” from tobacco related disease. It is the “number one avoidable cause of disease”, said Mr Kyprianou, for whom this is not just an advertising campaign but an integrated communication campaign that will not only highlight the dangers of smoking and ways of giving up, but will also support the trend towards tobacco-free public spaces.
He also invited member states that have not already done so to ratify the WHO's new framework convention on tobacco control, which entered into force on Sunday and has been ratified by only 13 out of 25 member states. He pointed out that this international convention was to a great extent influenced by European legislation that had two pillars: the regulation of tobacco products and their packaging adopted in 2001 and the advertising ban of 2003.
“HELP” is the Commission's second big EU-wide anti-smoking campaign. It will benefit from experience obtained in the first campaign, “Feel Free to Say No”, which ran from 2002 to 2004 and achieved over a billion contacts with young people throughout the EU.