12. 9. 88 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 237/49 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Directive on the approximation of the laws, regulations 
and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning the maximum tar yield of 
cigarettes (]) 
(88/C 237/16) 
On 22 February 1988 the Council decided, in accordance with Article 100 A of the Treaty 
establishing the European Economic Community, to consult the Economic and Social Com­
mittee on the abovementioned proposal. 
The Section for Protection of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Affairs was 
instructed to prepare the work on this topic and adopted its Opinion on 7 June 1988 on the 
report by Mr Aspinall. 
The Economic and Social Committee, at its 257th plenary session, meeting of 7 July 1988, 
adopted by 48 votes for, 9 against and 5 abstentions the following Opinion. 
1. Introduction 
1.1. The proposal for a directive is to harmonize the 
tar yield in cigarettes throughout the Community in the 
context of achieving the completion of the internal 
market by 1922 and also taking into account the need 
for a high level of health protection under the 5th action 
within the 1987-1989 programme 'Europe Against 
Cancer' (2) supported by the ESC in its Opinion on 
26 February 1987 (3). 
2. The Commission's proposal 
2.1. The Directive proposes that the tar yield of 
cigarettes marketed in the Member States shall not be 
greater than 15 mg on 31 December 1992 and 12 mg 
on 31 December 1995 with the laws being brought into 
force within 18 months of the Directives notification to 
the Member States and a supplementary period of 
2 years allowed for the sale of existing stocks wich do 
not comply with the limits. 
2.2. The limits have been proposed by the Commit­
tee of cancer experts. 
3. General comments 
3.0. The Committee supports the Commission's pro­
posal subject to the following comments: 
3.1. The Committee subjects that the Concil should 
accept the limits set out in Article 2. However it is 
necessary to provide some flexibility wich will lead to a 
gradual reduction in demand and will ease the economic 
and social burden in southern countries where changes 
in tobacco variety and tobacco products will have to 
be undertaken. 
(') OJ No C 48, 20. 2. 1988, p. 10. 
(2) OJ No C 50, 26. 2. 1987. 
(3) OJ No C 105, 21. 4. 1987. One way of providing this flexibility would be to 
promptly prepare a draft Directive imposing 15 mg and 
12 mg tar yield limits on cigarette advertising by 1992 
and 1995 respectively, and thereafter applying the same 
limits to the manufacturing of tobacco products. 
3.2. The Committee stresses that every effort must 
be made in the interests of personal and public health 
to reduce both smoking in general and tar intake in 
particular and regrets that the Commission did not put 
forward all the tobacco-related Directives at the same 
time; these are interrelated and should be discussed 
together. 
3.3. The Committee is aware that unless the 
reduction in tar limits is gradual, allowing for adjust­
ments in EEC raw tobacco production and consumer 
requirements, there could be economic and social conse­
quences owing to the fall in demand, the reduction 
in government tax revenue, job losses and increased 
imports of raw tobacco from third countries. 
3.4. In order to analyze the Directive's progress and 
to ensure that effective measures are taken to meet 
economic and social objectives, the Committee suggests 
that a Commission inter service group be established 
to look into problems that may come to light during 
the implementation stages of the Directive and suggests 
that a report should be sent to the Council, Parliament 
and Economic and Social Committee after one year for 
comment and evaluation. 
3.5. The Committee wishes to see a determined and 
coordinated effort to inform, educate and advise 
smokers both actual and potential of the danger to their 
health and that of other people, especially if the tar 
yield of cigarettes is high. The risk is most serious 
for children and young people whose habits can be 
influenced and determined at an early stage in life. 
Appropriate methods of communication likely to 
appeal to different age groups should be investigated 
and assessed. 
No C 237/50 Official Journal of the European Communities 12. 9. 88 
3.6. The Commission should investigate the remain­
ing 10 % of the tobacco products market ('roll-your-
own' etc.) to see wether consumer information on the 
tar (and nicotine) content of these products could be 
stepped up. 
3.7. The proposals for testing tar yield in cigarettes 
should be quite clear and the flexibility stated in 
Article 3 should be removed. There should be one 
recognized testing methodology used by all Member 
States. Otherwise there could be restrictions created for 
the free circulation of cigarettes and different standards 
evolved. 
The choice of wich testing methodology to be used 
should be in consultation with the International Organ­
ization for Standardization (ISO). 
3.8. It is noted that within the Community two 
Member States, Spain and Portugal, have legislative 
procedures and that Spain has recently adopted a royal 
decree reducing the tar yield limit, a further four Mem­
ber States have existing voluntary agreements between 
the producers and government restricting advertisement 
of cigarettes wich have a tar yield over an agreed limit. 
These voluntary agreements should be encouraged and 
be implemented in each Member State in advance of 
the deadlines. 
3.9. To comply with the Directive, additional pro­
duction costs are likely, due to the probable replacement 
of national varieties by imported ones, especially for 
the production of national brands of cigarettes in the 
southern Mediterranean countries, and due to the need 
for different filters, and paper and tobacco blending. 
This will have some economic consequences in southern 
Mediterranean countries such as Greece. 
Done at Brussels, 7 July 1988. 3.10. The Committee invites the Commission to con­
sider ways of easing the economic and social burden in 
these regions of the Community and encouraging them 
to switch their tobacco growing policy to more accept­
able varieties and possible alternatives to tobacco. 
Where changes are introduced that affect workers earn­
ings the potential social consequences wil have to be 
borne in mind. Where the operation of the Directive 
results in or is likely to result in a loss of jobs in any 
region, the Commission should initiate proposals for a 
Redundancy Compensation Scheme. 
As a part of the common agricultural policy (CAP), 
aids are granted to promote the growing of law-tar 
varieties. There is an increasing market for these in the 
Community. The Committee feels that it should also 
be possible to allocate these aids to R&D, to the social 
conversion of growers and workers affected by this 
necessary swich to law-tar varieties in the tobacco-
growing sector, and to effective measures to educate 
the general public about the risks they run in smoking, 
especially high tar yield cigarettes. 
3.11. The Committee notes that society has begun 
to accept that smoking is a health risk and therefore 
every effort should be make to bring forward the 
implementation of the remaining actions in part 1 of 
the 'Europe Against Cancer' programme which are 
beneficial to society and which can be discussed during 
and up to the end of 1989. 
4. Specific comments on the Articles 
4.1. Article 3 
The Committee recommends that there should be only 
one testing methodology used. This could be agreed 
with the ISO, the tobacco industry and each Member 
State authority. The words 'or any other method giving 
equivalent results' should be deleted from the text of 
the Directive. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Alfons MARGOT 
L^.D^ CO^hci^i]ourn^lorrhe^uroo^nC^ornrnunin^ ^o^^^^l 
to the Opinion of the economic and social committee 
The following amendments,which were supportedbn atleastaquarterof the votes cast, were defeated 
during the debated 
^oint^. 
Oelete the words ^especiallv if the tar vield of cigarettes is highmn the third line. 
This passage could give the impression that smoking cigarettes withalower tar content is not injurious to 
health.Toavoid this impression it would seem better to delete this passage, so that the sentencemquestion 
refers onlv to the potential dangers of smoking to the health of smokers and that of other people. 
^or^D,against^-^, abstentions.^.