Tobacco giants lose EU label fight

LEGAL moves by the tobacco industry to block tougher health warnings on cigarettes were rejected by European Court judges yesterday.

British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco had claimed the EU exceeded its authority by demanding bigger written health warnings on cigarette packs, and graphic pictures of rotting teeth and diseased lungs to discourage smoking.

The EU also advocated new ceilings on the tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide content of all tobacco sold in the EU and exported.

The new rules, agreed by EU governments, had been due to be in force in all EU countries by the end of September this year, with manufacturers given a further year to comply with a ban on the use of descriptions such as light and mild.

Yesterday the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg rejected the tobacco industry's claims that legislation on public health grounds was a matter for national governments and that the protection of public health has nothing to do with EU's responsibility to ensure the smooth running of the single market.

The judges said the chief aim of the new rules was to protect "the functioning of the internal market in the tobacco products sector while ensuring a high level of health protection."

The EU was legislating to harmonise public health rules "to prevent the emergence of obstacles to the free moment of tobacco products."

Such obstacles would arise, said the judgment, if various national rules were allowed setting out different requirements for the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco.

Two years' ago the same court did uphold a legal challenge to EU rules banning tobacco advertising and sponsorship, on technical grounds. But EU health ministers last week reinstated the rules under a different legal heading to ban all tobacco advertising in newspapers, magazines, on radio and on the internet.

Yesterday's court ruling will mean bigger health warnings covering 30% of the front and back of cigarette packs, and optional pictures of the effects of smoking.

Dutch Liberal Euro-MP Jules Maaten, who steered the legislation through the European Parliament, said the outcomes struck a blow for public health and was another defeat to the tobacco industry, after approval last week of the tobacco advertising rules.

MEP Catherine Stihler commented: "The tobacco giants have tried every trick in the book to stop this, but if the size of the health warning directly reflected the risk to health, the label would cover the whole cigarette pack.