Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-05-Speech-2-054"
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"en.20020205.4.2-054"2
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"Mr President, it is with some regret that I must disagree slightly with my colleague, Mr Katiforis. I am speaking particularly on behalf of the UK PSE delegation in order to say that we will not be supporting this report for many of the reasons that Mr Katiforis has already outlined. We do not accept the argument that price makes no difference to the amount of cigarettes consumed. In fact, I have figures here from the UK, which show that a 10% increase in the price of cigarettes leads to a 4% decrease in consumption. So there is a link between the cost of smoking and the amount that is actually smoked. That is the case that the UK PSE delegation is making, particularly with regard to Amendments Nos 2 and 3 on reducing the excise duty below that set out in the original report.
It is important for Parliament to vote against this report, because very recently we adopted the tobacco directive, which, as we all know, took various public health measures to reduce smoking. It therefore seems very inconsistent to adopt this report, which seeks to pass measures and form opinions which will, to some extent, go against the measures we have already taken on public health grounds. That is not to say that we do not understand the issues raised about the applicant countries and about small and medium-sized tobacco producers. If voting against this report has an effect on them, that is unfortunate and is not something that we would wish to see. But when we are discussing tobacco we are talking about a product which is harmful to health wherever you happen to live, and that is the main argument. This is a health measure rather than anything to do with production or with harmonising duty, though that we accept the latter as a principle. I felt that I needed to explain our position and say why the UK PSE will be voting against this report later today."@en1
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