Advert ban sparks call for EU action

Date: 30/01/1997

By Michael Mann

BELGIUM'S decision to impose a unilateral ban on cigarette advertising has been seized upon by anti-tobacco campaigners as proof that an EU-wide prohibition is the only sensible way forward.

But initial hopes that Dutch Health Minister Els Borst-Eilers might be prepared to seek a way out of the seven-year impasse in the Council of Ministers have apparently faded.

Health Commissioner Pádraig Flynn's officials now seem to be pinning their hopes primarily on a change of government in the UK - the current British government has been a key player among the minority of member states which have consistently blocked the proposal.

The office of the opposition Labour Party's health spokesman Kevin Barron said this week: “Labour has supported a ban in Britain for a long time, so it would be logical to support a ban everywhere.”

Whether a Blair government would find it quite so straightforward in practice in a country which is home to several major multinational tobacco manufacturers is another matter.

But the European Commission genuinely believes that if the UK falls in behind its plans, “opposition could start to crumble and the momentum could really build”.

There is little likelihood of a major exporting country such as Germany reversing its hostility to tougher action. Greece, as a major recipient of production subsidies, is also ranged against the ban and Denmark is concerned about the potential restriction on freedom of information resulting from a bar on, for example, publications carrying tobacco advertising.

But anti-smoking groups hope that the Netherlands might be willing to drop its opposition if signs emerge that a compromise can be found.

At the beginning of her country's presidency, Borst-Eilers suggested that she would look for “different ways to make a political signal”. But her officials have since denied that this indicated a major turn around in policy for a country with huge trade interests in tobacco.

The minister also stressed it was necessary to look at the relative health effects of a number of social habits, claiming that there were 30,000 tobacco-related deaths in the Netherlands annually, 2,000 from alcohol, 40 from the use of hard drugs and none at all from soft drugs.

Luk Joossens, of the Belgian Coalition Against Tobacco, believes the adoption of the Belgian ban - which takes effect in 1999 - makes the case for harmonised measures within the single market even stronger.

Belgium joins Italy, France, Portugal and Finland in prohibiting tobacco advertising in some form or other. The Belgian law includes a ban on advertising in print and broadcast media and the sponsorship of sporting and similar events by tobacco firms.

Arguments on the tobacco issue have always raised fierce emotions, with those opposed to a ban pointing to evidence that advertising has little effect on smoking habits. Surveys in Finland suggest that, since its advertising ban in 1979, smoking among youngsters under 18 has increased by 7&percent;.

The next meeting of health ministers is not scheduled until 5 June, so in the absence of progress on the advertising issue, anti-smoking groups are turning their attention to Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler's future plans for support payments to EU tobacco growers.

The International Union Against Cancer (UICC) has cast doubts on the Commission's plans to encourage higher quality production, claiming “this variation of the premium, which at first seems logical, is not always easy to apply and could even encourage fraud”.

It also points out that most Europeans smoke varieties which cannot be cultivated under European conditions anyway.

What Fischler needs is to encourage real conversion to other crops and a large increase in the tobacco research and information fund, argues the UICC.