MEPs back tougher tobacco rules

Vote in favour of visual warnings on packs E-cigarettes would be treated as tobacco

Members of the European Parliament have voted to back stricter rules on the marketing and labelling of tobacco products, adopting a position largely in line with what member states agreed in June.

The points of disagreement between the Council of Ministers and the Parliament were sufficiently limited to raise the hopes of health campaigners that the legislation will be approved before the end of the current parliamentary term.

In Strasbourg on Tuesday (8 October), the Parliament voted for graphic pictorial warnings to cover 65% of a cigarette pack, down from the 75% proposed by the European Commission. This is the same proportion called for by the Council. Current European Union law requires labels that cover 30% of a pack. They are text-only, though member states are allowed to go further by demanding photographs.

MEPs also followed the Council’s lead in rejecting the Commission’s proposed ban on slim cigarettes, and like member states they backed a proposed ban on flavourings. But they added a derogation of five years for menthol-flavoured cigarettes.

However, MEPs took a different position from the member states on whether to ban e-cigarettes. Ministers had backed the Commission proposal to regulate these new products, which deliver nicotine without a flame and without tobacco, as medicines for the purposes of market authorisation. The ministers made this classification stricter than the Commission, lowering the threshold of nicotine content at which an e-cigarette is considered a medicine from 4mg/ml to 1mg/ml.

The e-cigarette industry had complained that the bureaucratic requirements involved in authorising a medicine would put them out of business. MEPs voted to regulate them as tobacco instead, which may involve a lighter authorisation process.

According to the Parliament, the e-cigarettes should contain no more than 30mg/ml of nicotine, should carry health warnings, and should not be sold to anyone under 18. They would be subject to the same advertising restrictions as tobacco products.

E-cigarettes are currently largely unregulated, with different member states adopting very different approaches and some having no regulation covering the products.

Contrary to the fears of some health campaigners, MEPs did vote to give British centre-left MEP Linda McAvan, who has been drafting the Parliament’s response to the proposal, a mandate to start negotiations with the Council. Vytenis Andriukaitis, Lithuania’s health minister, said on behalf of the Council that he would begin negotiations with MEPs immediately and aim for an agreement “as soon as possible”.

Monika Kosin?ska, secretary-general of the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), said after the vote: “The strong mandate given to take the next step of negotiations forward is a good signal that despite the intense lobbying, the weakening of the provisions and the failure to ensure the highest level of health protection, the overall strategy of the tobacco industry to delay this directive has so far failed.”

Tonio Borg, the European commissioner for health, said he was “confident” that the law could still be adopted “within the mandate of the current Parliament”.

The American tobacco company Philip Morris, which attracted attention when leaked internal documents detailed the extent of its lobbying of MEPs, noted that there were “several important steps” to be taken before the directive could become law.

Drago Azinovic, president of the company’s EU region, said: “MEPs have failed to provide a workable framework for reduced-harm products and have also continued to include oversized graphic health warnings and pack standardization – even though the risks of smoking are already well known – and without apparent concern for property rights that the EU Charter protects.”