Opinion: German Smokers Facing Tough Times

Smoking damages health not only for smokers, but also for non-smokers. According to reliable estimates, some 140,000 people in Germany die every year as a consequence of their nicotine addiction. Furthermore, those who smoke are doing damage not only to themselves, but also to those around them. The number of victims of secondary smoking is estimated at 3,000 per year.

It is best not to start smoking in the first place. And those who have been lured by the advertising of the cigarette industry should be urgently advised to give up smoking -- the sooner the better. But that is not what the legal quarrel between the German government and the EU Commission is about.

The quarrel is about whether the EU exceeded its competences when it placed a ban on advertising tobacco products. The advocate general at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) already answered this question in the negative. And since the ECJ usually makes its rulings based on the advocate general's recommendation, the German case against the so-called advertising directive will hardly have a chance. This means it is highly probable that German newspapers and magazines will soon no longer be allowed to feature cigarette ads.

False argumentation

Now German Consumer Protection Minister Horst Seehofer does not even want to wait for the court ruling, which is expected in the fall. Instead, he wants to submit a bill implementing the EU tobacco advertising ban to the German parliament without delay. The circle of bill supporters in the parliament is growing from day to day.

We should welcome the advertising ban in the interest of public health. But the EU Commission in Brussels is not at all responsible for health protection in the European Union; health policy lies within the competence of national governments. That is why the Commission did not make health protection into the subject of their advertising ban, but argued instead for the need of having common advertising rules on the European single market.

And although the Commission is by all means the competent authority for issues related to the European market, its argumentation is false because newspapers and magazines are national products. Only 1 percent of German newspapers and magazines are delivered to other EU member states. If they contain tobacco ads, that still doesn't destroy the European single market.

Half-hearted efforts

Additionally, if tobacco products are banned from being advertised, why not impose the same ban on advertising alcoholic drinks or sweets with extremely high sugar contents? What about highly motorized cars which endanger their drivers and others? And not only that: The advertising ban for tobacco products seems highly questionable considering that the EU annually spends a billion euros ($800 million) on tobacco cultivation in the member states. That should have been terminated a long time ago, but the EU Commission lacked the courage to face the strong agrarian lobby on this issue.

We should welcome those who act openly against smoking, especially as far as the protection of non-smokers is concerned -- which is exactly what the initiatives of the consumer protection minister and members of the parliament across partisan borders are trying to accomplish. For several years now, Germans have been enjoying a legally guaranteed right to a nicotine-free environment at work, but that has not applied to those working in bars and restaurants.

Minister Seehofer and numerous MPs are now planning to introduce a smoking ban in all public buildings, as is already the case in most EU countries. Aggressively protecting public health, in general, and non-smokers, in particular, is more honest than taking the backdoor approach with the help of competition law.