Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-14-Speech-1-039"
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". – Mr President, honourable Members, it is with great pleasure that I reply to this debate on the report of the Conciliation Committee concerning the tobacco products directive. This directive is the culmination of several years of hard work by the Commission on the basis of the best scientific advice.
Another innovation in this text is to require the declaration of additives in tobacco products – potentially the most important single measure contained in this legislation. Currently we do not know what these additives are at Community level and, more importantly, why they are added to the product. Manufacturers and importers will in future be obliged to declare these constituents.
We will then move towards preparing a legislative proposal when these data are provided. This will be done before 31 December 2002. I am happy to say that preparations for this consequent legislation, arising from the furnishing of this data, will be undertaken during my mandate as a Commissioner. In the meantime, Member States remain free to protect their consumers.
Another important component of this directive is the substantial increase in the size of health warnings on packaging. They will be increased to ensure that consumers are fully informed of the health risks they run and, for the first time, information will be provided on how to get help to stop smoking. The previous rules were worded too loosely and the new directive makes sure that the warnings will be printed in colours that are clearly readable and cannot be disguised as at present.
As a result of an amendment from this House, the introduction of colour photos on warnings is to be introduced for the first time. This will greatly increase the impact of these warnings.
In recent years research has shown the importance of avoiding misleading product descriptors on tobacco products which may make the consumer believe that a particular product is safer than another. This directive introduces a requirement not to use such misleading terms on tobacco products. As such, it aims to protect smokers and non-smokers alike from misleading representations of the dangers posed to them by such products.
In order to provide a mechanism to keep these rules up to date, we have also included a provision for regular Commission reports and a committee procedure.
In a previous declaration when the first reading took place, I undertook to consult with tobacco experts in drawing up this report and any subsequent proposals. I can inform you today that work is already under way to reconstitute the Commission's Advisory Committee on Cancer Prevention and to create its working group on tobacco. However, I must draw your attention to the difficulty the Commission envisages in respecting the deadline imposed in Article 5(3) of this text, which leaves little time to consult these committees and subsequently to adopt rules for the use of colour photographs on warnings.
In the coming weeks, I also hope to meet my undertaking to present a new proposal on tobacco advertising and sponsorship. This will replace the directive annulled by the Court of Justice last October.
I also regard the Community's legislative activity as complementary to that under way in the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on tobacco control. I welcome the presence of an observer from the European Parliament in the Community delegation, appropriately Mr Maaten, which early this month met in Geneva when the second round of negotiations for this convention took place.
Finally, let me again express my appreciation for your support and confidence in ensuring the rapid adoption of this important directive and for the words expressed in respect of the Commission's involvement. I should like to play tribute in particular to Mr John Ryan and the significant contribution he has made to this issue over the years.
We have developed and proposed a qualitative step forward in protecting public health, working within the confines of the legal basis for completion of the internal market. The directive before you today will represent a significant improvement on our current legislative position and fill many of the gaps, which have made the current rules ineffective.
I hope it will be seen in coming years that this directive is a keystone of our efforts to reduce the damage to health by smoking.
The present directive will put the European Community at the forefront of efforts to control the death and disease caused by tobacco consumption. In this way, the addiction of future generations of young people has been taken seriously, and a framework created to reduce the enormous harm caused by this product.
I need hardly remind Parliament of the level of health damage from tobacco to our population which exceeds that from more widely debated causes. The World Health Organisation estimates tobacco-related deaths in the Community to be more than half a million a year. This does not include the number of smokers who suffer from serious and debilitating illnesses, such as respiratory disease and heart disease. This makes tobacco control the most import tool in reducing death and disease in our midst.
I must here compliment Parliament and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Maaten, whose amendments have substantially improved and completed this measure. The Commission was happy to accept many of these amendments. Mrs Maes, in her contribution to Parliament, made a statement that this was a textbook example of cooperation between the three great legislative institutions of the European Union; I would echo that, but refer also to the role of the Court of Justice in its judgment in the case relating to the advertising directive. I would go further and, say echoing what Mrs Maes has said about this being a textbook example, that this issue – the story of tobacco and the legislation of tobacco – both in the first advertising directive that I am bringing forward soon and this particular directive, is worthy of close examination by any serious student of the European Union or law student. It provides a clear example of how all the institutions can work well together in formulating policy and bringing forward that policy in the form of valuable legislation within the confines of the competences laid down in the treaties amending the Treaty of Rome, and will allay the fears of anybody who has concerns about the European institutions becoming too powerful, because the lines of demarcation are clearly set out by the Court and respected by the institutions in respect of this legislation.
In short, this is a textbook example as Mrs Maes has said, worthy of further study by young students. This directive recasts several existing directives from the late 1980s. We have used this proposal to update and complete existing instruments on the basis of scientific developments, including, for the first time, several important harmonisation measures.
I should like to mention the setting of a reduced tar ceiling in cigarettes and the creation for the first time of a ceiling for nicotine and carbon monoxide. These ceilings will directly attack the agents in cigarettes responsible for cancer, addiction and cardiovascular disease. We are not, however, aiming at producing a safe cigarette, since such a product cannot exist, but simply to reduce the most dangerous product constituents.
Importantly, these rules now apply to all imported products and to all products manufactured in the Community. Thus, we will not export products, which are considered inappropriate for our citizens. Equally, given the significant amount of smuggling, we do not run the risk of unsafe exports coming back onto the Community market.
I have been particularly upset at the cynical efforts of the tobacco industry to use the spectre of job losses to threaten this measure. The same threats were also expressed when the original tobacco directives were adopted in the late 1980s. They were not true then and they are not true now. There is no room for double standards for our own citizens and for others when we are talking about an addictive and deadly product."@en1
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