Dispute over tobacco ads expected to smoulder on

Date: 23/11/1995

By Fiona McHugh

SPAIN'S efforts to end a long-running dispute over restrictions on tobacco advertising in the EU seem certain to be frustrated at a meeting of health ministers next week.

In an attempt to breathe life into a moribund European Commission plan to ban cigarette advertising, the Spanish presidency proposed diluting the plans.

It had hoped this would be enough to persuade one of four member states blocking the proposal - Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK - to switch camps.

But diplomats says Spain's compromise plan has proved to be a non-starter and both sides remain firmly entrenched. Hopes for an agreement at next Thursday's (30 November) meeting of EU health ministers have now been quietly abandoned.

The original Commission proposal, which was supported by the European Parliament during its first reading, calls for an EU-wide ban on all tobacco advertising. Opposition to that plan was fuelled by fears that it would not only outlaw direct advertising, but also have a devastating impact on the profitability of major sporting events such as motor racing Grands Prix, traditionally heavily sponsored by the tobacco companies.

The latest compromise put forward by Spain would have allowed member states with national bans in place - Portugal, Italy, Finland and France - to stop publications carrying tobacco advertisements from entering their territory. But it would not have forced other countries to impose such a ban or covered indirect advertising, such as the sponsorship of sports events.

Despite these concessions, the revised text has so far failed to end the stalemate.

With the ministerial meeting on the horizon, the debate over whether or not tobacco advertisements should be allowed in the bloc has reached a feverish pitch in recent days.

Pro and anti camps wheeled out heavy artillery and familiar arguments were rehearsed in a last-minute attempt to determine the outcome of a battle which has been raging for over five years.

At a major conference staged in Brussels this week, experts from the tobacco and advertising industries accused some member states of using national bans to protect domestic markets.

“Banning or restricting advertising for products on legal sale is often a hypocritical subterfuge to satisfy activist groups without jeopardising substantial tax revenues,” said Ronald Beatson, the Director-General of European Association of Advertising Agencies.

Italian diplomats, however, rejected that claim saying it was “a complete lie”. One insisted: “There is no question of us protecting home markets. It is rather a question of public health.”

But marketing experts said advertising was used to encourage smokers to switch brands and not to recruit new smokers. “Advertising cannot create needs - but it can help consumers make informed brand choices,” said Richard Semenik of the University of Utah.

But that too was refuted by the anti-smoking lobby.

“If you look at what is going on in the tobacco industry you will see that they are losing 1,500 customers each day in the EU who die of tobacco-related diseases. That means that to maintain their markets, they have to recruit 1,500 new smokers each day,” said Andrew Hayes of the Association of European Cancer Leagues.

“I do not believe they would spend such large sums of money simply to fight it out among themselves.”

Social Affairs Commissioner Pádraig Flynn also stepped into the debate, criticising Philip Morris' tobacco advertising campaign for failing to acknowledge that smokers can damage the health of others.

That is the second time the Commission has attacked the US company for advertisements suggesting that anti-smoking legislation infringed personal liberties and implying the EU was responsible for such laws.

The decision not to vote on the proposed ban at next week's meeting amounts to a stay of execution for the tobacco and advertising industries.

They want the Commission to withdraw its troubled proposal altogether, an option which Commission officials insist is not on the cards.

It will now fall to Italy, the next holder of the EU presidency, to come up with a rescue plan for the proposal, but few are taking out bets on its chances of success.

Diplomats say Rome is unlikely to make the dossier a priority, condemning it to languish a little longer in the Council.

According to the Commission, the current range of different national laws is blocking the free movement of advertising-carrying media between member states. Its proposal, to be adopted by qualified majority vote, is aimed at rectifying that distortion of the single market.