BRUSSELS — Health warnings should cover 75 percent of cigarette packs but governments should also have leeway to require plain packaging, the European Commission said Wednesday.
Yves Logghe/Associated Press
European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy Tonio Borg held up a mock package of cigarettes during a news conference on proposals to revise the Tobacco Products Directive, at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday.
The commission’s proposal would also ban cigarettes containing large quantities of flavorings including menthol and vanilla, restrict the sale of slimmer cigarettes and maintain a ban in most of the European Union on a form of chewing tobacco called snus.
The proposals still are less strict than in Australia, where a prohibition on logos and colorful designs went into effect this month. But the proposed ban on slim and super-slim cigarettes that are marketed to young women “is a positive development and a world first,” said the Smoke Free Partnership, a European organization that promotes tobacco control and research.
Tonio Borg, the E.,U. commissioner for health and consumer policy, said the overall goal of the so-called Tobacco Products Directive was to make smoking less attractive and to discourage young people from tobacco consumption.
“Consumers must not be cheated,” Mr. Borg said. “Tobacco products should look and taste like tobacco products, and this proposal ensures that attractive packaging and flavorings are not used as a marketing strategy.”
But Unitab, a European association of tobacco growers, said regulators had declared “total war” on their industry. The increased restrictions on branding would make price the deciding factor in tobacco sales; that in turn would favor suppliers from countries with lower production costs and put thousands of jobs in Europe at risk, the association said.
Written health warnings already must cover about 40 percent of a cigarette pack in the Union, although some countries also use pictorial warnings. In the future, Mr. Borg would like pictorial warnings to be mandatory, and for the warnings to cover three-quarters of the front and back of each pack of cigarettes, and half of each side.
E.U. officials conceded that the entire top and bottom sides of cigarette packs sold in Europe still could be used for branding under Mr. Borg’s proposals. Member states could opt to require plain packaging, however.
The directive also would require that smokeless electronic cigarettes providing more than a certain amount of nicotine should be available only in outlets like pharmacies. National or Europe-wide “test panels” would determine what quantities of flavoring like menthol should be banned, they said.
Much of the interest in the legislation in recent months had focused on apparent attempts to influence its wording.
Mr. Borg’s predecessor, John Dalli, resigned in October after the commission concluded that he had probably known about an attempt by a lobbyist to solicit a multimillion-dollar payoff in exchange for easing the ban on snus. The product can be sold only in Sweden, where some people consider it a safer alternative to smoking.
Mr. Dalli denied the allegations and said he was forced to resign under pressure from José Manuel Barroso, the president of the commission. Mr. Dalli also said his ouster had jeopardized chances for the revised directive to be passed before the current term of the European Parliament, which must approve the legislation, expires in 2014.
Mr. Borg suggested Wednesday that the law still could be adopted before the Parliament’s term expires, and go into force in 2015 or 2016.
But the Smoke Free Partnership warned that lobbying still could water down the proposals on labeling and packaging, as well as the ban on flavors and slim cigarettes. Governments and members of the European Parliament “are likely to face attempts by the tobacco industry to further block, weaken and delay this important legislation,” said Florence Berteletti Kemp, the director of the partnership.
