Taking Liberties

My latest post on the Telegraph's new Ways and Means blog can be found HERE. Readers of Taking Liberties will find the subject (Europe, tobacco, freedom of speech) familiar so feel free to add a comment. (Note: once registered, you can comment on any of the Telegraph blogs so it's worth taking a moment to do it.)

By coincidence, Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has sent me a copy of a post he has written for his blog. It concerns a hearing he has just attended in the European parliament. (Note: the hearing is NOT the reason I am in Brussels, although it could have implications for an initiative we are working on with our European partners.)

Roger writes:

A series of anti-smoking campaigners vied with each other to vilify the tobacco industry, accusing it of dreadful things like lobbying, and seeking to influence legislation, and promoting the interests of its shareholders, and doing other cynical things like awarding prizes for Corporate Social Responsibility and contributing to anti-AIDS programmes. The sort of things that just about all major industries do, in fact.

The World Health Organisation has initiated the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which the EU and 26 member-states have signed up to (The Czech Republic, God bless it, has declined to sign). They are now producing "guidelines for implementation". Anti-smoking lobbyists are proposing that the guidelines should preclude legislators from speaking to the industry. Yep. You read that right. They want to ban MEPs from speaking to tobacco companies.
 
Frankly, I was hopping mad when I heard this proposal. It is absolutely fundamental to any kind of good governance that legislators should discuss proposed legislation with those affected, and that parliamentarians should talk to businesses in areas they represent. I represent the East Midlands, home to Imperial Tobacco. Hundreds of their employees are my constituents, and a quarter of my constituents smoke. I personally hate smoking, but I respect the right of my constituents to make grown-up choices. Imperial has already been hammered by the EU's Tobacco Directive, which like so much EU regulation had the primary effect of moving jobs, production and investment out of the EU altogether.
 
The WHO proposal is an assault on democracy. Listening to constituents, and to businesses, is a key part of what I am paid for, and I shall continue to do so without let or hindrance from the WHO.
 
If we start with tobacco, where do we stop? Many of my colleagues would like to start restricting the drinks industry. They believe that "Big Oil" is frustrating their attempts to curb global warming. Packaged food companies contribute to obesity. Cars cause accidents and pollute the atmosphere. They have problems with the pharmaceutical industry.  This could grow into a full-scale assault on business and capitalism - which of course is exactly what many in the green lobby want.

The full post should appear HERE shortly.

Last night we ate at Tribeca, a delightful French restaurant on the famous Avenue Louise. If you're a vegetarian or animal rights' campaigner, look away now because one of my companions insisted that I order the foie gras as a starter. Unexpectedly, I got a double helping because the waiter then recommended that I have foie gras sauce on my Argentinian beef - and before I could say "Enough, think of the birds!", there it was on my plate.

It was a warm evening so we sat outside on the terrace. This was one of two smoking areas - the other was inside, on the first floor. (In Belgium restaurateurs can allocate rooms for smokers as long as no food is served there.)

In fact, smoking continues to be permitted in many cafes and bars, so for most smokers there isn't really a problem. What a pity British politicians aren't as sensible about this as most of our European neighbours.

How long this will last remains to seen. Dick Engel, a colleague from the Netherlands, was also at last night's dinner, and we know what has happened in Holland. Sadly, an attempt to delay or reverse the ban failed in the Dutch courts last week, and the anti-smokers march on.

So, plenty to talk about over dinner. And the food wasn't bad, either.

It seems the Irish have rejected the Treaty of Lisbon. Oh, to be in a Dublin bar tonight! I am tempted to jump in the car, drive to Stansted and catch the first available flight.

But first, a word of warning. Defeat in Ireland should put a stop to the treaty, which needs to be ratified by all 27 member states, but the EU doesn't work like that. The BBC is reporting that European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso is calling  for other states to continue their ratification processes and said "a solution should be sought". I bet he is.

Let's remind ourselves how the Lisbon Treaty came about. It was drawn up because voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the draft European constitution in 2005. Even the BBC admits that the treaty is remarkably similar to the original constitution and "contains many of the changes the constitution attempted to introduce". See HERE.

The BBC is also reporting that "The British government is expected to continue ratifying the EU Treaty despite its rejection by Irish voters." Perhaps David Davis should include this issue in his civil rights campaign. We were promised a referendum. We should get a referendum. (For more information see the excellent I Want A Refendum campaign website.)

Which reminds me ... we were promised exemptions to the smoking ban (in the 2005 Labour party manifesto). We should get exemptions to the smoking ban. Never let them forget it.

Talk of Europe (below) reminds me that Forest used to belong to an association of European smokers' rights groups. Founded in 1992, it was called Smokepeace and members eventually included groups from Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece.

In 1995 a "secretariat" was set up in Brussels. Apco, a worldwide public affairs company, was recruited to run it facilitate meetings. Representatives of each national group would meet several times a year and international conferences were organised in Amsterdam and Seville.

I joined Forest shortly before the Seville conference in 1999. The organising team, led by Apco's Mark Dober, did a great job. Seville was a fantastic location, the  food and wine were magnificent, the company was terrific, and I have never inhaled so much smoke in all my life. Socially, it could not have been better.

Two years later Smokepeace was quietly wound up. Starved of funding, it had neither the means nor the resources to have any serious political clout. Over the next few years most of the individual member groups bit the dust too.

Today - out of curiosity - I visited Apco's website to see what became of Mark Dober. This is what I found:

[His] main area of expertise is in health care and he has represented numerous influential companies and associations in the sector. He is a regular conference speaker on health care issues, recently chairing the European Pharma Marketing Congress, and speaking at the Drug Industry Association Congress.

You've got to laugh.

If you read about my experience in Brussels last month (HERE and HERE) you may be interested to know that Forest has now submitted a formal complaint about events on March 19.

I won't reproduce the full three-page letter (although it's not every day that I find myself writing to the Secretary-General of the European Commission), but it includes the following questions:

• Is it normal or acceptable for a stakeholder who has received a written invitation to a consultation meeting to be asked to leave that meeting by other stakeholders?
  
• Is it normal or acceptable for stakeholders with a clear vested interest to dictate who can take part in a consultation meeting?
  
• Why were the representatives of four pharmaceutical companies present at a meeting described as a “consultation meeting with EU experts, civil society and social partners”?
  
• Do written minutes of the meeting exist and are they available to the public?
  
• Is there a formal list of stakeholders at the meeting and is it available to the public?
  
• If the answers [to the two previous questions] are “No”, why are stakeholders allowed to attend consultation meetings – and make verbal contributions – anonymously?

If and when we get a reply I'll let you know.

In a separate letter to the EU's Health and Consumer Protection Unit, I have written:

Forest is keen to play an active role in the consultation process and I would welcome the opportunity to attend future meetings in Brussels. However, having read the background document and considered the impact assessment procedure, I am concerned that the outcome of the consultation is a foregone conclusion.

Well, that's the diplomatic way of putting it. Watch this space.

STOP PRESS - the European Parliament today called for wide-ranging measures to restrict smoking in public places. A report by Karl-Heinz Florenz (EPP-ED, DE) was adopted with 561 votes in favour 63 against and 36 abstentions.

The EP says that 650,000 people a year die from smoking, including 80,000 from passive smoking. It also claims that while 70 per cent of Europeans are non-smokers, 86 per cent are in favour of a ban on smoking at work, 84 per cent in other public places, 61 per cent in bars and pubs and 77 per cent in restaurants.

DeHavilland, which provides Forest with political information, adds that:

MEPs want the Commission to designate environmental tobacco smoke a class 1 carcinogen and recommend that - within two years - member states impose smoking bans in all enclosed workplaces, including catering establishments, as well as in all enclosed public buildings and transport.

MEPs are also asking the Commission to examine measures such as introducing an EU-wide ban on the sale of tobacco products to people under 18 years of age, allowing cigarette machines to be placed only where they are inaccessible to minors, removing tobacco products from self-service displays in retail outlets ,and banning distance sales of tobacco products to young people (eg over the Internet). 

The report calls on member states to commit themselves "to reduce smoking among youth by at least 50 per cent by 2025" and for the Commission to consider "an EU-wide high minimum level of taxation of tobacco products".

All pretty predictable. But don't cancel those Europeans holidays just yet. This one could run and run.