European Parliament votes in favour of strong tobacco control measures

Rebecca Taylor, Lib Dem MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, has welcomed today’s vote in the European Parliament on the Tobacco Products Directive.

The Parliament adopted numerous measures aimed at making tobacco products less attractive to young people, such as banning flavoured cigarettes and ‘lipstick’ shaped packs, and increasing the size of combined text and pictorial health warnings on all cigarette and loose tobacco packaging.

Rebecca Taylor was particularly pleased with the vote on electronic cigarettes. Commenting, she said:

“Lib Dem MEPs have led the campaign in Parliament to oppose mandatory medicines regulation for e-cigarettes as proposed by the Commission and supported by Labour MEPs. We feared that this would reduce choice, make e-cigarettes much more expensive and less widely available than tobacco cigarettes, even though inhaling nicotine vapour is infinitely less harmful than smoking tobacco.

“I am delighted that the Parliament voted in favour of the Liberal Group amendments on e-cigarettes, which will tighten up the regulation applying to them without subjecting them to over-burdensome pharmaceutical regulation.”

The Liberal amendments on e-cigarettes include provisions to introduce minimum age requirements for the sale of e-cigarettes, tighter rules on labelling and advertising and the regulation of cross-border sales.

The lead MEP on the tobacco directive has received a mandate for the Parliament to enter negotiations with national governments to reach a final agreement on the text.

 

 

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