Central European coalition attacks draft tobacco directive

摘要

In a common declaration, adopted on 17 May, during a meeting in Krakow, Poland, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian ministers fiercely criticised the European Commission's draft tobacco directive, whose objectives include preventing the production and sale of slim and menthol cigarettes in the EU. In their declaration, ministers called for "economic and social factors, which are no less important than health factors," to be taken into account. Poland, which initiated the meeting, is the second largest producer of leaf tobacco in the EU, and takes pride in this successful industry. "Thousands of families live from tobacco production, on small farms, which produce on difficult land, in the least developed regions of the EU where there is high unemployment," emphasised Polish Agriculture Minister Stanislaw Kalemba. In Poland, 40,000 people would be affected by the directive, and 150,000 in Bulgaria (on 35,000 agricultural holdings.)