For Immediate release: Wednesday30 May  2001

“A good start, but could do better”: ASH's verdicton EU Tobacco Ad-ban.

A new European Directive, whichwould place some restrictions on the advertising of tobacco, was given acautious welcome today by public health groups.  The Directive was published by the European Commission thismorning, and will be discussed by Ministers next month on its way to becomingEU law.[1]

Under these proposals, all pressand radio advertising for tobacco will be banned, as will tobacco sponsorshipfor events which take place in more than one EU country.  Unfortunately, other forms of tobaccopromotion such as point of sale advertising and “brand stretching”, wheretobacco brands are advertised using non-tobacco products, will be unaffected bythese proposals.

This new Directive replaces a 1998directive banning all tobacco advertising in the EU, which was latersuccessfully challenged by the tobacco industry and the German Government. [2]It will act in addition to the total or partial bans on tobacco advertisingwhich already exist in many European countries.

Action on Smoking and Healthwelcomes the new directive, but regrets that it does not go further. JohnConnolly, Public Affairs Manager for ASH, said:

“It's good that the EUhave brought out this new directive ­ tobacco advertising gets more peoplesmoking, and persuades smokers to keep smoking. This directive is a promisingfirst step towards controlling advertising across the EU ­ something thatindividual countries can't do on their own, and which will save lives.  It's a shame, though, that they didn't takethis opportunity to publish something stronger.  The European Commission, quite understandably, don't want thisreplacement directive to be challenged in the courts. I think, though, thatthey could have been a bit bolder in what has been published. We would haveliked to see other measures such as a clamp-down on brand-stretching, andeffective controls on point of sale advertising included. Over the years, theevidence shows that, unless a ban on advertising is total, the tobacco industrywill divert all their energies into those options which are still open to them.

“ASH, along with otherpublic health groups, will be pushing for this directive to be strengthened bythe European Parliament and member states as it moves towards becoming EU law.”

ENDS

Notes for Editors

 [1]  The text of the draft directive, along withthe European Commission's press release, is available at http://www.europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/01/767|0|RAPID&lg=EN

[2] The original EU Tobacco Advertising Directive wasannulled by the European Court of Justice in 2000 following a successfulchallenge from the German Government and the tobacco industry.

[3]  European public health groups have written to European HealthMinisters, proposing a text for a possible replacement directive, which wouldprovide effective control for tobacco advertising. This suggested text wouldwork within the ruling of the ECJ, while not creating loopholes and giving thetobacco industry easy routes to circumvent the ban. The text of this directive,along with a list of organisations which have signed up to it, is available at www.ash.org.uk/html/advspo/html/addirectivetext.html

Contact: John Connolly, 020 7739 5902 (Work) or 02077354327 (Home)