By Filipe Rufino - 22nd May 2007
European liberal MEPs have called for fresh initiatives in the ongoing EU anti-smoking campaign, such as inserting 'how-to quit smoking” leaflets inside cigarette packs.
At a press conference in Strasbourg, MEP Jules Maaten said surveys show that there is a demand for information on how to quit from smokers that has been left unanswered.
“Smokers want more information on how to quit smoking, time and again this emerged in surveys”, Maaten said.
The MEP referred to European commission studies that conclude that tobacco is the leading avoidable cause of death in the EU, killing 650,000 a year.
“Cigarette packs should be provided with a leaflet with neutral information on how to quit smoking and the telephone number of a European help and information line," he added.
EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou, who also attended the anti-smoking event at parliament, said the number of countries where smoking in the workplace is banned by law has risen from one at the launch of the campaign in 2005 to “near ten”.
The workplace should be “a healthy place and smoke-free… Non-smokers are the majority and they have a right to live without smoke”, said Kyprianou, who himself is a former smoker.
Kyprianou and Maaten were commenting on a manifesto presented on 21 May by the European Youth Forum calling for an EU-wide smoke-free working environment and an EU ban on on the sale of cigarettes to under 18s.
Since the launch of the "Help-anti-smoking campaign" in March 2005, the European commission has spent over €70 m to fund nearly 400 events all over the EU as well as advertising on TV and in other media.
But the commission has been criticized for promoting a smoke-free society while at the same time granting approximately €1 bn worth of subsidies to tobacco growers.
“It is a bit of a contradiction,” admitted Kyprianou, while underlining the subsidies are being phased-out until 2010.
The commission launched a green paper in January aimed at reaching a smoke-free environment in public places across the EU, with a consultation which ended on May 1.
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