14.5.98

Tobacco advertising banned by EU 

By Toby Helm, EU Correspondent in Brussels

PUBLISHERS and cigarette manufacturers promised to mount legal challenges against an EU ban on tobacco advertising last night after a new directive was approved by the European Parliament.

Tessa Jowell, the minister for public health, welcomed the ban as a "giant leap forward in the fight to reduce smoking", but leaders of both industries insisted that it was illegal and must be killed.

Publishers said it amounted to an assault on freedom of expression and would mean reductions in revenues that helped to support Europe's "pluralistic" press.

Sir Frank Rogers, chairman of the European Publishers Council and director of the Telegraph Group, attacked Euro-MPs for pushing ahead despite warnings from their own legal affairs committee that there was no legal base for the measure in EU law.

"The question of the legal base was apparently dismissed by a majority of MEPs in an unseemly rush to push through this shabby piece of legislation, which is shamelessly based on incorrect articles of the EU treaty," Sir Frank said.

"MEPs have participated today in an undemocratic process. We are now preparing our legal challenges at national level in every EU member state to stop this directive."

John Carlisle, the former Tory MP and now a director of the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association, said the EU had no authority on health, economic or single market grounds to justify legislation.

But the chairman of the parliament's environment committee, Ken Collins, dismissed the threat of legal action and said the EU had the power to introduce a ban under article 100a of the EC treaty, which deals with the single market.

Because the measure was introduced as a single market matter, it required only the support of a qualified majority of states. This meant that after 10 years of argument it was approved by health ministers last December despite German and Austrian opposition.

The German government has already said it would mount a legal challenge in the European Court on the grounds that the ban would limit freedom of speech. Bonn also insisted such a law breached the German constitution.

Yesterday's warnings of legal action were issued after the directive cleared its last major hurdle in the Strasbourg parliament.

An amendment stating that there was no legal base for a ban was rejected by 314 to 211 votes.

The legislation should now come into force within the next few weeks. Once it is fully applied, the only publicity allowed by the year 2006 will be in specialist tobacco trade journals and inside shops selling cigarettes.

Member states will have three years to remove tobacco advertising on billboards and in cinemas, and four years in newspapers and magazines. Sponsorship of sporting and cultural events must end within five years - except for Formula One motor racing, which was given eight years.

Tobacco company logos on clothing must change, too, to avoid direct linkage with cigarette packet colours and designs.