Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-18-Speech-1-079"
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"en.20021118.5.1-079"2
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". – Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that I am pleased to be here today to present the Commission's proposal for a directive on tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
The previous directive included a ban on all forms of tobacco advertising and sponsorship. The Court considered that this general ban did not have the legal support of the Treaty. However, the Court was not entirely negative in its ruling. Far from it. It helpfully confirmed that a directive prohibiting certain forms of advertising and sponsorship could be adopted on the basis of Article 95 of the Treaty.
The new proposal therefore follows very closely the guidelines set out in the Court's ruling.
The logic behind the present proposal is clear: all Member States have adopted national rules to regulate the advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products. These regulations, unsurprisingly, vary considerably between Member States. This divergence has, ironically you might say, been exacerbated by the annulment of the previous directive. This gives rise to increasing barriers to the free movement between Member States of products and services that serve as support for such advertising and sponsorship. We aim to eliminate these barriers by harmonising the rules relating to the advertising of tobacco products and related sponsorship to the extent possible in the light of the Court’s ruling.
The proposal foresees a general ban on tobacco advertising in the press. This is an important vector for tobacco promotion, and one that has strong cross-border implications.
The proposal also includes a ban on tobacco advertising on the Internet. Advertising of tobacco products via radio and the sponsorship of radio programmes by tobacco companies would also be banned on the same lines as television advertising under the television without frontiers directive.
Finally, the proposal deals with sponsorship – banning this for events or activities with cross-border implications. Overall, the proposal has a much more limited scope than the previous directive. I know that many of you regret this and I sympathise with this view. I make no secret of the fact that I would have preferred to present a proposal for a complete ban on advertising for tobacco products. But, unfortunately, the legal framework does not allow us to go that far. We have to live in the real world. We have to recognise the legal constraints.
Our common concern must be to ensure that this new directive can and will stand its ground against any possible future court challenge and to eliminate the market distortion by harmonising current national rules, whilst at the same time promoting public health.
A final thought for now. This proposal has been very carefully constructed. Any weakening of its legal position would open the door to challenge which, if successful, would play directly into the hands of the tobacco industry. We simply cannot afford to let that happen.
It has been a long time since the Commission adopted this proposal – 18 months to be precise.
It would be an understatement to say that I am disappointed with the slow progress on this proposal so far. There have been delaying tactics, misinformation and, very often, misleading statements.
It is a great pity that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market was unable to work more quickly, in contrast to the much quicker response from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, whose members are the true experts in the European Parliament on public health and consumer protection. They at least clearly understood the importance and urgency of this proposal.
Worldwide, almost 5 million people die every year from tobacco-related diseases. This is two and a half times the number of deaths from AIDS.
Of those 5 million half a million are European – the equivalent of the population of Copenhagen.
Advertising plays a major role in promoting tobacco use, especially amongst young people. The tobacco industry needs new recruits to replace those whose consumption of the deadly product has caused their early deaths.
It is against this background that I invite you to look at the present proposal. This directive is important for the operation of the single market. Without it the single market for print media, radio and the Internet cannot be guaranteed on account of variations in national legislation on tobacco advertising across the Member States.
The proposal is intended to replace the previous directive on tobacco advertising and sponsorship, annulled by the European Court of Justice two years ago."@en1
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