WRITTEN QUESTION P-0196/01 by John Bowis (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Tobacco Control Directive.
Date: 2001-01-29
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EC Directive, approximation of laws, consumer information, export (EU), sale, tobacco

C 174 E/256

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

19.6.2001

(2001/C 174 E/276)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0196/01

by John Bowis (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(29 January 2001)

Subject: Tobacco Control Directive

Would the Commission please confirm that Article 3 of the draft Directive is the only article in the draft
which applies to products manufactured in the EU and exported therefrom?

Answer given by Mr Byrne on behalf of the Commission

(7 March 2001)

Article 3 of the proposal for a Directive of the Parliament and of the Council on the approximation of the
the Member States concerning the manufacture,
laws, regulations and administrative provisions of
tobacco products (1) concerns inter alia all products manufactured in the
presentation and sale of
Community including those intended for export. There are other provisions in the proposal which could
also concern products for export, such as those relating to additives and to misleading descriptors, for
example.

(1) OJ C 150 E, 30.5.2000.

(2001/C 174 E/277)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0272/01

by Christian von Boetticher (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(2 February 2001)

Subject: Electronic postage stamps and compliance with EU data-protection directives

The German post office service, Deutsche Post AG, and the Netherlands and Italian Post Offices are
planning to introduce electronic postage stamps, with stamps being downloaded directly from the Internet
and printed on the envelopes. To that end, however, specific data concerning the user, such as sender,
addressee, cost of postage, creation date, etc. would have to be stored. Further conclusions could then be
drawn from such data (frequency of postal traffic with certain addresses and, subsequently, private
information such as membership of a trade union, name and address of general practitioner, etc.).

Does the Commission take the view that these plans comply with the EU directives on the protection of
natural persons when personal data is being processed (cid:129) especially the issues of the storage of data which
is not exclusively required for the forwarding of items by post and of security against counterfeiting? Does
it further take the view that it is possible to preclude the danger of trade in the addresses thus acquired?
Finally, does it take the view that a system which does not require the storage of data of this nature is
preferable to the systems developed by the postal services?

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(2 March 2001)

The Commission has no detailed information about how the German, Dutch and Italian postal authorities
intend to process personal data, as mentioned by the honourable Member. In general terms, Article 6 of
Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection
of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (1)
states that personal data must be (cid:145)collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further
processed in a way incompatible with those purposes(cid:146). In addition, the application of the principle of
proportionality means that if there are alternative methods of attaining the same result, the method must