EU Takes Strong Measures to Curb Smoking
RALPH WENGE, CNN ANCHOR: Europe is getting tough on the tobacco industry. The European Union is proposing new measures that will reduce the amount of tar in cigarettes, even on exports. And the European parliament is considering even stricter steps. One proposed regulation would require graphic images of diseased lungs to cover nearly half of each package. EUTV has the story of their debate.</s>JIM GIBBONS, EUTV (voice-over): Some 19 million people in the European Union are regular smokers. That's almost a third of the adult population, and health campaigners say it's far too many.</s>LUK JOOSSENS, INTERNATIONAL UNION AGAINST CANCER: Tobacco kills 550,000 persons each year. Half of the smokers will die of tobacco- related diseases. There is no other consumer product which will do such damage.</s>GIBBONS: The European Commission wants to cap the tar and nicotine level, permit member states to insist on a list of ingredients and increase the size of health warnings. MEPs, though, want to go further, with a ban on additives like ammonia, an EU-wide standard for listing and testing contents, and clearer health warnings that take up 35 percent of the front and 45 percent of the back of a pack of cigarettes in order to give smokers detailed information.</s>JULES MAATEN, DUTCH MEMBER, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: They don't know that 85 percent of people with lung cancer have it because of smoking, and that 80 percent of those die within three years. Now that's a different type of information from giving information smoking isn't good for you.</s>GIBBONS: One irony about any moves to curb smoking is that the EU also subsidizes small tobacco growers in Greece. In fact, it spends a billion euros a year, far more than on anti-cancer campaigns. The European Commission admits it's difficult to explain, but argues that for those farmers there's no alternative.</s>DAVID BYRNE, HEALTH COMMISSIONER: I'm told that typically, farmers, tobacco farmers, have an income of something in the order of 3,000 euros per annum, a very, very -- very, very low incomes, and that 75 percent of that is the subsidy provided by the European Union.</s>GIBBONS: The tobacco industry in Europe says it would welcome common European standards as the European parliament is demanding. But with 80 percent of new smokers being under 18, they say they're also prepared to help tackle underage smoking.</s>DAVID DAVIES, PHILIP MORRIS COMPANY: If we work with government and we work with teachers and work with parents, we believe we can do more to address this problem than we can alone.</s>GIBBONS: One of the most worrying factors in Europe is that the greatest growth in smoking is among teenage girls. (on camera): There's a limit to just how much legislation can be introduced at a European level to curb smoking. But here in Strasbourg, there is a general feeling that the member states could be doing a lot more if they really wanted to.</s>JOOSSENS: It's possible. For instance, in some states in the U.S., the number of adult smokers is 14 percent. So in Europe, it's around 30 percent. So if it's possible in Massachusetts, it should be also possible in the European Union.</s>GIBBONS (voice-over): MEPs will agree that it will require a greater effort of will on the part of individual governments than they've shown up to now. At the European parliament, this is Jim Gibbons, EUTV, for the CNN WORLD REPORT.