European Union governments and members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are at loggerheads over a new range of health warnings which tobacco companies should be legally required to display on cigarette packets. The parliament last month approved over 30 changes to draft legislation on health warnings to try to increase their impact.
The most significant changes would require packets to carry graphic photographs of blackened lungs and rotten teeth and ban the use of terms like “low tar,” “light,” and “mild.” They would increase the size of the warning labels by requiring up to 40% of the front and 50% of the back of each packet to be used for this purpose. The MEPs opted for new messages to be included, such as “Passive smoking harms those around you, especially children”; “Smoking kills half a million people each year in the European Union”; and “Smoking causes cancer and heart disease.”
They hope these will discourage the hundreds of people who start the habit each day. In addition, the draft legislation would reduce the maximum tar content per cigarette from 12 mg to 10 mg, cut nicotine levels to 1 mg, and introduce a 10 mg limit on carbon monoxide content for the first time. The amendments went considerably further than most governments of European Union states, which share legislative powers with the European parliament in this area, are prepared to go. Member states want to increase the size of existing health warnings, but not to the extent demanded by MEPs. Nor do they support the idea of graphic photographs, which were recently pioneered in Canada.
When EU health ministers examined the revised legislation 24 hours later, they made clear they were not prepared to accept almost a third of the amendments, although they did not specify which ones. That will become clear in the next few months, when health ministers agree on their own amendments to the planned EU measures. Before the proposal can become law the two institutions will become involved in some hard bargaining to try to reconcile their differences. If they fail, the draft legislation will fall. Meanwhile, the public health commissioner, David Byrne, confirmed that within a couple of months he would be presenting a new proposal to ban all tobacco advertising and sponsorship in the EU. This would replace the legislation that was overturned by the European Court of Justice in October because the judges did not believe it had a sufficiently sound legal base.
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GERARD CERLES/AFP
MEPs want pictures of blackened lungs on cigarette packets