Rendez-vous 155
October 15 2005
Markos Kyprianou is EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection
Thank you Mr Commissioner for taking the time to be with us today. May I ask you to introduce yourself?
My name is Markos Kyprianou and I am European Commissioner for
Health and Consumer Protection. I took up this position last November,
having been a member of the Commission since May 1st 2004 when my home
country of Cyprus joined the EU along with 9 other countries.
As Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner, tobacco control is part
of my dossier, and an area that I have highlighted as a priority.
Smoking is the single greatest cause of avoidable deaths in the EU with around 650 000 Europeans dying of smoking-related diseases every year. These figures are shocking and demand action. I hope that through both EU and national legislation and anti-smoking campaigns, the number of smokers in the EU can be significantly reduced over the coming years.
Q1. The Commission has launched a new media campaign, “Help, for a life without tobacco” with two broadcasting periods, in June and September. It is certainly hard to create a campaign that works in the 25 EU countries. What type of feedback have you got so far and how do you plan to evaluate the campaign?
After the first broadcasting period, we gathered detailed quantative information on the advertising campaign, i.e. how many channels it was shown on, how many people saw the advertisements and how often. I am pleased to say that the results exceeded our expectations. Once the second broadcasting phase is completed, we will carry out another quantative assessment and also run a comprehensive post-test survey. The results will feed into the next phases of the campaign and will be available on the HELP campaign and Commission website in the autumn.
Q2. I have seen the clips and I have read the explanations given in the press kit (about pre-tests etc) but I am not convinced the party whistle metaphor is effective. Looking at the other media campaigns launched at the same time by some EU countries their approach seem very different (like in the UK or in Belgium or France). Is there a risk of confusing the public? How can you reconcile warning about the dangers of smoking and using the party whistle?
The objective of the TV adverts was to highlight how unnatural smoking actually is, by substituting cigarettes with something ridiculous, like the party-whistles. The pre-tests carried out on these advertisements were very thorough, and the feedback we got was that such a metaphor was an effective way of getting our message across. I think that the more messages being sent out about the danger of smoking, the better. The fact that certain national approaches may be different to the EU angle simply means that there is more variety in the way this information is being transmitted and therefore more likely to catch citizens’ attention.
I don’t think that the Commission’s advertisements conflict in any way with national adverts – in fact, they often complement them. Our campaign is based on solidarity and the message we want to put across is that there is always an alternative to tobacco and that help is available from a wide variety of sources. Partnership building is also an important aspect of our campaign. We have already established real partnerships with 19 national tobacco cessation help-lines, while tobacco control bodies and media organizations are helping us to implement the HELP campaign in all of the Member States. We are also beginning to collaborate with national campaigns. For example, in September this year, the Commission campaign and the Spanish national campaign will be broadcast on different Spanish TV channels in order to maximize number of people reached.
Q3. Promoting the use of color photographs or other illustrations as health warnings on the packages is also part of your communication strategy. Can you tell us what the reaction has been so far? While there seems to be evidence that such images are a deterrent for smokers, governments don’t seem eager to adopt them. How do you intend to proceed to promote them? What EU countries (if any) have already decided to adopt them and when would they be “on the market”?
I am very happy with the response so far to the picture health warnings. Already a number of Member States, including Belgium, UK, Latvia and Portugal, have expressed an interest in introducing these graphic images to cigarette packets. Realistically, however, it may be a while before the pictures start appearing in any Member State, mainly due to the fact that a certain period is required for the necessary national legislation to be passed and implemented. To help interested Member States in adopting this measure, the Commission is sending out CDs with the combined text and picture warnings and technical specifications. It will also provide Member States with any additional legal or technical assistance that they need to adopt the picture warnings, and the issue will be discussed extensively within a special expert committee set up under the Tobacco Products Directive.
Some national administrations, while welcoming this next step in tobacco control at EU level, have indicated that they would like more time to evaluate the full impact of the large textual warnings, which in themselves are relatively new, before moving on to another innovative measure to attract public attention to the dangers of smoking.
Interestingly, the Commission has actually been approached by several other organizations, including the New Zealand Ministry of Health, certain NGOs and academic institutions, who asked to be allowed to use the pictures from the EU database in their own tobacco campaigns. I see this interest from third parties as a testimony to the fact that, with these picture warnings, the EU is among the frontrunners in tobacco control policy.
Q4. The EU Center for Disease Prevention and Control has been launched recently. Is tobacco control part of its missions and if so how is the Center going to be involved? Could it eventually determine best practices in tobacco control as the US CDC has done? At one point the Commission mentioned the publishing of an annual report about the state of tobacco control in the EU. Is it something the EU CDC could produce?
The ECDC's current mandate only covers control of infectious diseases, so there is no immediate prospect of it playing a role in tobacco control, although its mandate will be reviewed in 2007. The responsibility for tobacco control at EU level lies mainly with the Commission, and a large amount of both human and economic resources are dedicated to this task.
Comparing best practice in national tobacco control policies is certainly something I would encourage, and I have called on Member States to follow good initiatives, such as the bans on smoking in the work place in Ireland, Sweden, Malta and Italy.
With regard to a report on the state of tobacco control in the EU, the Commission has just published its first report on the application of the Tobacco Products Directive, which states that EU provisions on health warnings and maximum tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide are being respected. In October 2004, the ASPECT report was published, giving a comprehensive overview of national tobacco control in all 25 Member States and looking at issues such as tobacco product laws, effective measures taken against smoking, and the health and economic effects of tobacco in the EU.
Q5. Philip Morris USA has announced they are going to include within the cigarette packs an insert to help smokers quit as well as create a website to provide information about quitting. Tobacco control advocates are rather skeptical about such a move but I like the idea of the insert. Could health warning inserts designed by health agencies (not the tobacco industry) be mandated at the EU level? What about printing a quitline phone number and a quitline url on the pack? Could such measures be considered at the EU level? Many countries have also organized quit and win contests that seem a cost-effective way to incite smokers to quit: could the Commission be involved in promoting such initiatives?
The Tobacco Products Directive already gives Member States the option of putting a quit-line number or internet address in the obligatory health warnings on cigarettes. The official website of the “HELP” campaign also provides information on how citizens can seek support in their fight against tobacco. With regard to other initiatives, such as the quit-and-win competitions and information inserts in cigarette packets that you mention, I welcome any responsible measures over and above those taken at EU level that could encourage people to stop or to not start smoking.
Q6. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Tackling smoking is a challenge that cannot be effectively met with one single measure in isolation. However, by approaching tobacco control from all angles - through legislation, information and education - and involving as wide a spectrum of society as possible, I believe that real results can be achieved. I hope that by the end of my term as Commissioner, smoking will be greatly “de-normalised” in the EU and that far fewer Europeans will be affected by this deadly habit.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
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