Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-14-Speech-1-030"
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"en.20010514.4.1-030"2
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"Madam President, as the rapporteur has already said, this is not the first time that tobacco has been on the agenda. We have discussed it on a number of occasions. It is a thorny problem because various conflicting interests are at issue, especially those of health and of industry. These in turn involve largely small and medium-sized businesses, which form the heart of the economy. Jobs are also at stake.
It is good that the Commission should have come up with a new directive and should have taken the initiative in the health field of doing everything possible to combat the consequences of smoking, for example by reducing nicotine content, banning harmful substances, by warnings and better labelling, by highlighting the danger of passive smoking and through product information. In the field of the harmonisation of the internal market, it wants to do its utmost to combat different starting positions and to remove trading obstacles, by, for example, stating nicotine content, and by further harmonising policy on warnings and product information. I hope that we can really achieve reciprocal recognition of testing methods.
Exports to third countries are a sore point. Personally I take the view that what we regard as inadmissibly harmful to the inhabitants of the EU should not be exported to other countries, even if they have no legislation in that field. I deplore the fact that this may have adverse consequences for employment in certain countries. I would like to observe, however, that in my view more jobs have been lost through restructuring or the closing of companies by the industry itself than from political regulation. For that reason I am for the time being reasonably optimistic. I also believe that we have reached a reasonable compromise on transition deadlines.
As regards the legal basis, I would point out that this directive builds on three existing directives. I therefore assume that we have a good legal foundation, having listened to, among others, the legal advisers of Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
In conclusion two more general observations. The first is on young people and smoking. I would welcome it if the Member States could strengthen their efforts to advise young people against starting smoking, for example through pricing policy or, for example, by making points of sale unattractive and inaccessible or by prohibiting the free distribution of cigarettes on café terraces or near schools. That is not universal.
A second observation concerns the subsidies on tobacco. On the one hand we have this directive aimed at discouraging smoking which points out the health dangers, but at the same time Europe continues to give huge subsidies for tobacco growing. It is my view that these should be gradually phased out.
Finally, I should like to compliment the rapporteur on the end result and thank him for the successful cooperation."@en1
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