Update | Europe votes to ban menthol cigarettes - but not until 2022
Its bid to water down proposed tobacco legislation also included scaling down the size of health warnings on packets following intense lobbying by tobacco companies.
The European Parliament voted yesterday to ban menthol cigarettes from 2022 but rejected a proposal to regulate electronic cigarettes as medicine.
Its bid to water down proposed tobacco legislation also included scaling down the size of health warnings on packets following intense lobbying by tobacco companies.
European Union member states and the European Commission had proposed some of the world's toughest anti-tobacco laws, including graphic health warnings covering 75 per cent of packets, an effort to deter young people from smoking. But the 750-member parliament rejected the proposals as too harsh.
While agreeing to further negotiations, the parliament said it could not accept a ban on slim cigarettes, would only implement a ban on menthol cigarettes in eight years' time rather than three years agreed by EU governments, and said health warnings should only cover 65 percent of packets.
Legislators also put new limits on advertising for electronic cigarettes, but stopped short of restricting them to therapeutic use only. The proposed new rules fell short of demands by some health campaigners for a total ban on company branding and logos on packets, along the lines of measures enforced in Australia.
The vote means compromise negotiations will now take place among the parliament, EU member states and the Commission, with the aim of having the legislation, known as the Tobacco Products Directive, passed before May next year.
"This is a shameful day for the European Parliament," said Carl Schlyter, a member of the Green party from Sweden. "[The] centre-right majority has done the bidding of the tobacco industry and voted for weaker rules."