Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-13-Speech-2-074"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2000-06-13"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products2
dcterms:Language	"fr"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20000613.8.2-074"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2000-06-13-Speech-2-0762
lpv:speaker	lp:Nicole Thomas-mauro2
lpv:spokenAs	member; UEN (1999-07-20--2001-01-30)3 member; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (1999-07-21--2002-01-14)3 substitute; EMPL (1999-07-21--2002-01-14)3 member; Delegation to the EU-Lithuania Joint Parliamentary Committee (1999-09-30--2002-01-14)3 member; Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities (1999-10-04--2002-01-14)3 unknown; Rassemblement pour la France (1999-07-20--2000-11-22)3 substitute; Delegation to the EU-Hungary Joint Parliamentary Committee (1999-09-30--2001-01-30)3
lpv:translated text	"Mr President, I must say it is rather paradoxical today to be discussing the intention to harmonise tobacco products and, at the same time, the intention to facilitate the free movement of what we all acknowledge to be a substance that is extremely harmful to health. If the European Union sincerely believes that it can protect public health by covering cigarette packets with increasingly larger labels advertising the fact that “smoking kills” or “smoking causes cancer”, we are surely in the realm of the absurd. Is harmonising these warnings a credible step when these toxic products are free to be distributed throughout the European Union, with the authorisation of the Union? So let us leave the national states to deal with tobacco, with their own structures and their own cultural messages; let us leave them to engage in their own discussions with producers and consumers. I refuse to believe that, in harmonising the warnings and labels, the European Union simply wishes to act for the common good. I reject the idea that European citizens should feel reassured in a tobacconist’s in Lisbon or Paris, simply because the Europeanised, standardised product they will recognise there will be familiar to them. As we all know, warnings serve no purpose, whether or not they are written in ‘Helvetica’ typeface. Surely our duty is rather to increase consumers’ responsibility rather than to make children of them by telling them what is good or bad for them. Even if smokers have freedom of choice, we still have a duty to take preventative action, mainly with regard to younger generations. We therefore support the amendments prioritising the protection of public health, particularly those prohibiting product descriptions for, whether it is “light”, “ultralight” or “mild”, tobacco, in the form of cigarettes, cigars or snuff tobacco, seriously damages one’s health. Doctors in respiratory medicine, no doubt, but cardiologists too, are well aware of the fact, which they can observe every day, that tobacco is extremely harmful to health."@en1

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