Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-18-Speech-1-085"
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"en.20021118.5.1-085"2
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"Mr President, there are mainly two elements of relevance here: one is content and the other is procedure. Let us focus on content first, because it is obviously all too easy to overlook this aspect in a legal discussion of this kind. Is a ban on tobacco advertising effective if the aim is to prevent its use? Yes, of course it is. Hardly anyone takes up smoking because they like it. They do so for other reasons. They may take it up because of peer pressure in the playground, children of parents who smoke take up smoking, and people take up smoking because they associate it with a certain image. They want to emulate the man making his way through the jungle in a rowing boat, for example, or that other man on horseback somewhere in the wild west with pleasant music playing in the background. This is why people take up smoking. Image has everything to do with it. This is why a ban on tobacco advertising is good. It is a legitimate product, so why should you ban it? Last month, an overwhelming majority of people in this House voted in favour of banning advertising for pharmaceutical products, but, unlike tobacco, these are produced to make people better. I am in favour of legalising cannabis, but I would not dream of allowing this product to be advertised. So the problem is more complex than at first sight.
As it happens, there was already an opinion from the European Parliament – and also from the Council, in fact. In 1998 we stated that we were in favour of a ban on tobacco advertising. In this connection, the Court said that we had gone too far, with good reason, in my view. This was completely unrelated to tobacco but had everything to do with the question how far we, as a Union, could go in respect of the Member States. I believe that the Commission was right to say: okay, this is what Parliament and the Council wanted, they wanted to go as far as possible. The Commission subsequently consulted the judgment by the Court, and also the opinion of the Advocate General, and copied almost verbatim what was suggested. I therefore believe that the Commission has done a sterling job, and I shall therefore advise the majority of my group to reject the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. These do not appear to be essential in order to make the directive more acceptable.
I should like to make two final observations. First of all, I do think we ought to be careful not to start a smear campaign against the use of tobacco, for example by introducing a complete ban on smoking in public places, or by banning children's toys, chocolate cigarettes, liquorice pipes and suchlike. This is taking matters too far, and by doing so we would also lose our allies in the fight against tobacco.
Finally, I should like to take this opportunity to once again draw your attention to an unacceptable anomaly, namely that we are discouraging the use of tobacco products on the one hand and are continuing to heavily subsidise tobacco production in Europe on the other."@en1
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