Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is just one figure to remember and keep in mind throughout the debate and, particularly, during the voting: 500 000 deaths per annum within the European Community are due to tobacco, which is to say, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or other infectious diseases. And if we were to issue a directive on the social costs or on public health, then it would have to be a discussion about simply banning this fatal poison outright. This is not, however, the case. Here we are presented with a directive intended to facilitate the free movement of goods throughout the European Union by approximating Member State laws, regulations and administrative provisions on the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products. We must therefore concern ourselves not with prohibition but with establishing the same conditions for consumer information throughout all of the European Union regarding the content but also the potential risks they run in consuming these products. In particular we must give thought to young people who do not have the necessary objectivity, and have only the image of young men and women smokers, and not the viewpoint that I was able to gain as a doctor on a respiratory medicine or cancer ward where I saw smokers dying in great pain from lung cancer. This is not the future we want for our own children. Let us also give a thought to other people’s future. From this point of view, we must be pleased with Mr Maaten’s report and the amendments voted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which improve the proposed directive. All these provisions, however, still fall short of what is necessary in the way of consumer information, and too often the determination to reach a compromise has prevailed. We must not let the text be distorted by amendments direct from the headquarters of the tobacco industry. We must remain vigilant as to the content, size and presentation of these warnings, which must not be changed. Several contentious issues still remain. The labelling of tobacco products other than cigarettes must be subject to the same conditions. The difficulty of measuring values or the fact that these products are not targeted at young people must not be used as an excuse for forgetting that these products, such as cigars, rolling tobacco or snuff, are harmful and must be labelled as such, especially since some, like the cigar or the pipe, may occasionally prove more attractive to young people. The maximum tar content of 10 mg is still excessive and does not take into consideration the real amount actually inhaled and the habits acquired. Tar content must be limited still further. More worrying is the fact that the Technical Committee set up includes specialists from the tobacco industry. How is this body supposed to be neutral when it includes so-called experts that have spent their time deceiving public opinion, now supposed to become impartial judges of the harmfulness and toxicity of the products sold by their own employers? I feel that one would have to be extremely naive, and not, one hopes, just corrupt, to believe that such a body might be truly objective. Especially since these consultants to the industry are prepared to allow the introduction of ingredients not only to increase consumption but also to increase habituation. In conclusion, confronted with 500 000 deaths annually, confronted with the money spent by the tobacco lobbies, infiltrating even this House, we must, ladies and gentlemen, make a choice in favour of life.

Political group: Verts-ALE