Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-23-Speech-2-373"
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"en.20071023.27.2-373"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to repeat things – four minutes of speaking time are too precious – except to say that, like most speakers, I welcome the broad lines of this motion for a resolution. Information programmes and preventive measures to reduce the number of young smokers in the coming years are only to be welcomed. This goes for deaths caused by tobacco, and in other areas it also goes for road deaths and deaths caused by alcohol. Up to this point I join the consensus. At the same time, however, we must remain reasonable.
Just as we do not stop traffic because of the fatal accidents or toxic exhaust emissions, or banish wine and beer to purgatory because of the cirrhosis of the liver suffered by some politicians, on tobacco, too, we must let common sense prevail, and avoid hypocrisy at all costs. I am thinking of the green health apostles in my country, for example, who inveigh against tobacco, but who legalised soft drugs a few years ago. These are a few marginal notes to this resolution, ladies and gentlemen.
In principle, it must continue to apply that no supranational regulation is needed in this area. Europe should respect the principle of subsidiarity once and for all if it wants reconciliation with its citizens. To give an example, years ago, a European directive laid down that tobacco, too, had to be labelled – which is all well and good, but then bureaucracy suddenly reared its head. The label has to cover 30% of the packet; 35% if it is bilingual. The text must be in black lettering, with a black border of minimum 3 mm and maximum 4 mm thickness, the font must be Helvetica, and so on and so forth. Europe wants to dictate everything, and no one understands where the subsequent irritation of the general public comes from.
Secondly, ladies and gentlemen, there is the hypocrisy of the subsidies for tobacco farmers, which even as recently as last year amounted to EUR 900 million a year. This has now been reduced to EUR 300 million, but is still many times greater than the sum channelled into information to induce young people to stop smoking. There is also a parallel with our nation-states: in Brussels a pack of cigarettes now costs EUR 4.30, of which EUR 3.30 goes as excise duty to the Belgian State, which spends a few million on anti-tobacco information programmes. Billions of euros a year in excise duties could serve to finance the health costs of combating lung cancer. Forgive my cynicism.
What are we going to do, though? Abolish the subsidies and disadvantage our European farmers by importing tobacco products from abroad? These questions, too, must be answered if one is to lapse into grandiloquent lyricism; otherwise, one pulls the wool over citizens’ eyes. Unfortunately, I can find no answer to these questions.
Finally, let us also avoid overdoing it, ladies and gentlemen, as the didactic language used sometimes makes me feel rather queasy. In fact, it all makes me shudder. A smoke-free Europe. What fine words. What puritanism. Sinners are to be punished. Let us guard against excessive stigmatisation of the 30% of the population who smoke. Let us refrain from becoming anti-tobacco ayatollahs, as a Socialist Minister in France once implored me. Let us refrain from lapsing into American conditions.
In California there are some who want to ban smoking in people’s own homes, too, from 2009. Just imagine! How are they going to do that? With commandos and informers? Compulsory tobacco detectors in every home? Is this the example we wish to follow? Are we going to follow in their footsteps? Are we going to ban the reading of Simenon on grounds that Inspector Maigret with his pipe is a bad example to young people?
Let us remain reasonable. In many European countries – for example Italy, France, the Scandinavian countries and also my own country – smoking was banished from the shop floor and from restaurants long ago; and a good thing, too. They did not need Europe for this. Long live freedom, I say. Let us give those restaurant managers who want one a small room for customers who occasionally like to enjoy a good cigar after their coffee or pousse-café. Who knows, though – perhaps coffee will also be banned and banished in tomorrow’s Europe, as caffeine, too, is addictive. Perhaps it would be best if the Commission put people on bread and water."@en1
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