As part of its campaign Help - for a life without tobacco, the European Commission recently unveiled a new anti-smoking advert which will air from 15 January on 80 television channels in 22 languages across all 27 EU Member States.

The new advertising campaign focuses on the negative health effects of passive smoking. The clip depicts a young adolescent experiencing breathing difficulties in her daily activities and shows her watching her parents smoking in the living room.

European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said: “Every year, passive smoking kills 19,000 Europeans who do not smoke. This latest advertising campaign aims to remind smokers that their habit harms their children’s health as well as their own.”

The television campaign ties in with an e-mail and web based campaign where smokers can get help and advice to stick to their new year’s resolution to quit smoking.

The Commission’s €72 million Help campaign has now been running for nearly two years. Several market researches have revealed that over 150 million Europeans have seen the adverts, including 55 per cent of young people and the approval rating among the target group of under 25s is 83 per cent.

The Commission intends to publish a Green Paper on Smoke-Free Environments in early 2007 to launch a broad consultation process on the best way forward to tackle passive smoking in Europe.

The advert can be viewed on the website

http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/Tobacco/help_en.htm .

The European Commission’s HELP - For a life without tobacco campaign was initiated by European Commissioner Markos Kyprianou. It aims at convincing people not to start or to quit smoking with a TV campaign and different promotional activities in the 27 European Member States.