Commission ties itself in smoke rings in handling tobacco lobby

THE European Commission tied itself in smoke rings yesterday when it announced simultaneously the continuation of its £800 million subsidies to tobacco growers and a new discussion document on reducing tobacco consumption.

There was no contradiction, according to a spokesman for the Farm Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, who said that any cut in subsidies to Europe's 150,000 producers and processors would only lead to a rise in imports.

Not so, said the Irish Commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn, who had unsuccessfully been demanding the setting of a date for the phasing out of such subsidies. But Mr Flynn's anti-smoking campaign did pay off partially in forcing Mr Fischler to propose new measures to help farmers get out of tobacco production.

The two commissioners held one of the strangest joint press conferences seen in a long time, each contradicting the other most amiably.

"Of course I am unhappy with the result," Mr Flynn said. "There is a clear contradiction in Union policy. Half a million people die every year in the Union from tobacco and related products - it is the single biggest cause of preventable death." He pointed to the EU budget for fighting cancer of only £12 million a year.

Mr Flynn, who was the subject of demonstrators' anger in Brussels on Tuesday when 3,000 growers from France, Greece and Italy laid siege to the Commission, insisted that he did not want to see the tobacco cash cut but put to use encouraging alternative forms of production.

Placards called Mr Flynn a "criminal", "commissioner for unemployment" and, most foul of all, "an Englishman".

The tobacco subsidies regime has also been criticised for funding the production of such poor crops that the bulk is not saleable on the EU market.

Mr Flynn's paper encourages member-states to consider such issues as reducing tar levels, new restrictions on smoking in public areas, controls on the sale of tobacco to juveniles, and the provision of nicotine chewing gum and patches at cheap prices, while increasing the price of cigarettes.

Mr Flynn expressed some optimism that the long-stalled ban on cigarette advertising may yet come into force after the British general election.