Tobacco consumption represents a serious public well being problem in Europe. Tobacco kills 700,000 folks yearly in Europe, together with 15% of that are non-smokers, and is the main explanation for preventable most cancers – writes Anne-Sophie Pelletier, MEP GUE/NGL
On the finish of February 2024, in Strasbourg, a bunch of MEPs will current a white paper setting out concrete proposals for the revision of Directives 2011/64/EU on the taxation of excisable merchandise together with tobacco, and 2014/40/EU on tobacco merchandise, often known as the Tobacco Merchandise Directive (TPD). With the World Convention on Tobacco Management (COP10) and the third session of the Assembly of the Events (MOP3) to the WHO Protocol going down this week in Panama, the European Parliament’s Parliamentary Working Group on Tobacco presents its suggestions.
The aim of this White Paper on Tobacco is to report on the exchanges, findings, and warnings ensuing from the hearings organized throughout 2023 by the Parliamentary Working Group on Tobacco (iWG TPD), in collaboration with Smoke-Free Partnership, the Alliance In opposition to Tobacco and the College of Tub. The MEPs White Paper on Tobacco might be distributed in English and French to all present and future Members of the European Parliament, political teams, the Fee, the World Well being Group (WHO), and the WHO Framework Conference on Tobacco Management (FCTC), public well being NGOs and the media.
Anne-Sophie Pelletier (The Left), co-responsible for this white paper, states: “Whereas the EU has set itself the aim of a “tobacco-free technology” by 2040, the European Parliament, within the conclusions of its BECA report (named after the Particular Committee “BEating CAncer”), underlined in February 2022 the pressing have to replace our anti-tobacco insurance policies. Right here we’re two years later, and the European Fee is dithering, always suspending revisions to those two tobacco directives on an obscure pretext.”.
THE FIRST SEVEN RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE WHITE PAPER
- Publication by the European Fee by summer season 2024 of proposals to revise the Tobacco Tax Directive 2011/64/EU and the Tobacco Merchandise Directive 2014/40/EU.
- Creation of an unbiased Ethics Committee, accountable for guaranteeing compliance with the WHO Framework Conference on Tobacco Management’s implementing directives, notably on transparency, revolving doorways, limiting contacts, and preferential remedy of the tobacco trade.
- Strict utility of Article 5.3 of the FCTC and obligation to register all tobacco product lobbying actors and associated actions within the Transparency Register: producers, federations {and professional} associations, retailers, contractors, and so forth.
- Implementation of supply quotas and unbiased traceability, as required by the FCTC Implementation Protocol.
- Instant termination of “cooperation agreements” signed between the EU and tobacco producers which can be nonetheless in drive
- Prohibition, inside the European establishments and Member States, of all types of political financing, promoting, sponsorship, patronage of sports activities, cultural, social, and well being actions by the tobacco trade straight or not directly
- Opening an investigation into suspicions of conflicts of curiosity and affect peddling within the Dentsu / Jan Hoffman case
The complete suggestions of the White Paper on Tobacco might be offered on the finish of February 2024 to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
THE MEPS’ TOBACCO WORKING GROUP
The target of the European Parliament’s tobacco working group, a casual group created in 2020 by Christian BUSOI after which co-chaired by MEPs Michele RIVASI (Greens/EFA) and Anne-Sophie PELLETIER (The Left), is to boost consciousness amongst European parliamentarians, NGOs, but in addition all residents who’re additionally taxpayers and voters, on tobacco-related points to allow them to face tobacco foyer disinformation campaigns, lies and manipulation.
The general public spherical tables of the MEPs’ tobacco working group have taken place in compliance with the commitments of the WHO Framework Conference on Tobacco Management (FCTC), particularly Article 5.3 of this worldwide Treaty, signed and ratified since 2003 by 168 States, which goals to guard public insurance policies from interference by the tobacco trade. The affect methods of tobacco lobbies in European establishments, taxation, and traceability as devices to combat towards parallel commerce, and the hidden environmental prices of tobacco are a part of the thematic questions reviewed.
Contact Info:
Workplace of Anne-Sophie Pelletier, MEP GUE/NGL
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone, workplace of the European Parliament in Brussels: 0032 2 28 45364
Photograph by haim charbit on Unsplash
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