MEPs have endorsed draft legislation updating the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive, two months after they reached an agreement with EU member states on a compromise text on the proposed legislation.
The revised directive had been adopted by the European Commission on 19 December, 2012 and presented by Health Commissioner Tonio Borg. Dr Borg had only been in office for three weeks when the directive was adopted; it was at the heart of allegations of corruption that brought down his predecessor John Dalli.
The directive aims to make tobacco products less attractive to those most likely to take up smoking – the young – but had been strongly opposed by the tobacco industry, which engaged in heavy lobbying efforts to delay the process or possibly force it to start over.
However, the European Parliament and the European Council managed to reach an agreement on a compromise text last December 18, after just one year. On that day, Dr Borg had told the Malta Independent that he was pleased to see an agreement reached that quickly, noting that this was exceptional.
Whilst compromise texts invariably alter the Commission’s original proposals, Dr Borg emphasised that the key proposals of the directives were kept, pointing out that the Commission also succeeded in ensuring that e-cigarettes are included in the scope of the directive, overcoming differences between MEPs and member states on the issue.
Under the proposed legislation, e-cigarettes could either be regulated as medicinal products – if they are marketed as an aid to quit smoking – or as tobacco products. They should be childproof, carry health warnings and be subject to the same advertising restrictions as other tobacco products, and e-cigarettes which are marketed as tobacco products must limit nicotine concentrations to 20mg/ml.
It would also ban flavourings giving tobacco products a characterising flavour in a bid to make them more attractive, while menthol – whose ban had been strongly opposed by Poland – would be banned from 2020. Flavours would, however, be allowed for water pipe tobacco. Certain additives which are particularly damaging to health would be banned, although additives essential to produce tobacco, such as sugar, would be authorised.
While current legislation requires that health warnings cover at least 30% of the area of the front of the pack and 40% of the back, the proposed text would increase this to 65%, front and back, and would require these warnings to be in picture form – which is not presently the case in most EU member states.
The legislation also bans packs of fewer than 20 cigarettes, which are cheaper and thus more accessible to children, and which often emulate packaging of confectionery or cosmetic products.
The European Parliament’s Public Health Committee backed the draft legislation last month, and the legislation was approved by MEPs in plenary today by 514 votes to 66, with 58 abstentions.
“This is the culmination of years of work against the background of intense lobbying from the tobacco industry and its front groups,” British MEP Linda McAvan, who was the rapporteur for the draft legislation, remarked.
“The new measures are a big step forward for tobacco control, and will help to prevent the next generation of smokers from being recruited. We know that it is children – not adults – who start to smoke: the overwhelming majority of smokers start before their 18th birthday.”
The proposed legislation will face its final hurdle – approval by the Council of Ministers – on 14 March, but the informal agreement already reached should make this a formality. Once it becomes EU law, member states would have to put the provisions into effect within two years.