According to MEP Françoise Grossetête, professor in pneunology Bertrand Dautzenberg and director of the Smoke Free Partnership, Florence Berteletti, the proximity between tobacco lobbies and bodies responsible for their control causes a tax loss of ten billion euros in Europe every year.
After the laborious adoption of the Tobacco Directive at the end of 2013, and the Dalli-gate scandal, named after the then Health Commissioner, John Dalli, forced to resign after a destabilization initiative orchestrated by the tobacco, we thought we were done with the relentless lobbying of tobacco companies in Brussels.
However, chase them through the door, they come back through the window! Fortunately, alerted to the smelly methods and opaque lobbying practices of the tobacco industry, which ourselves feature high on the tobacco company blacklist, we have remained vigilant. The Tobacco Directive adopted, it still had to be duly applied in the Member States by May 20. So now was not the time to relax.
We were therefore not surprised to be informed, almost a year ago, of the new hobbyhorse of tobacco lobbyists: regaining control of the fight against smuggling and counterfeiting, in particular through the monitoring system. and traceability of cigarette packages. The stakes are huge; the authorities seize each year on the territory of the European Union close to 300 million counterfeit cigarettese. Manufacturers have had their hand in the bag as they fueled contraband themselves, in order to circumvent heavy taxes on tobacco products. These practices cause a tax loss of almost 10 billion euros per year in Europe. Figures constantly increasing...
Close links between tobacco companies and control bodies
Following the revelation of fraudulent actions by certain tobacco companies, between 2004 and 2010, the European Commission and its anti-fraud agency, OLAF, concluded several agreements with four major manufacturers, in particular obliging them to finance
the fight against counterfeiting and trafficking. In reality, dupes' agreements, since under cover of these texts, the tobacco industry is indirectly placed in a position to influence and shape the anti-fraud policy itself. At the same time, we maintain close links between tobacco companies and the bodies responsible for their control!
A very concrete example therefore concerns the package tracking and traceability system, which must be put in place under the provisions of the Tobacco Directive. Several independent companies have made service offers to the Commission in this area. However, at the end of 2015, OLAF (which moreover openly supports the agreements between the Commission and the tobacco industry) explicitly declared itself in favor of the Codentify system, set up, used and defended by tobacco producers themselves. -same! One way for them to keep control of the juicy contraband business ...
"The tobacco lobby has a long arm"
These incestuous links ended up alerting not only the WHO and the European Ombudsman, who have already expressed their concern to the Commission, but also the European Parliament in Strasbourg, which recently very strongly opposed the renewal of the agreements of cooperation with the tobacco industry. The latter are in fact in complete contradiction with the WHO Framework Convention on the control of tobacco products, already ratified by France and by most of the 28 European countries, which stipulates that " contracting parties protect their public health policies from the influence of any commercial or private interest from the tobacco industry"
However, despite Parliament's injunctions, the soap opera continues and the Commission has not yet taken a firm stand for or against the renewal of the agreements. One thing is sure : the tobacco lobby shows once again that it has a long arm… And a lot of imagination. One more reason to remain vigilant. Making the decision to leave the tools to control smuggling in the hands of those who organized smuggling would not only be an attack on public health, but also an attack on ethics and institutions, citizens no longer supporting to see those who are appointed to lead them be in the boot of the lobbies.
An article by Françoise Grossetête is a Member of the European Parliament responsible for health issues et Bertrand Dautzenberg is professor of pulmonology at the upmc and practitioner at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris and President of Paris Sans Tabac.
Source : lexpress.fr
