Poland to appeal against EU ban on flavoured tobacco

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/poland-appeal-eu-ban-flavoured-tobacco-menthol-cigarettes-smoking

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Poland is to appeal to the European court of justice over an EU ban on flavoured tobacco products, saying it will be unfairly affected.

The ban is a part of EU-wide anti-smoking legislation, due to be implemented in 2016, which also includes tougher rules on packaging and marketing.

The appeal is being made despite support for the ban from the country's health minister, Bartosz Arłukowicz. However, economic arguments prevailed, with Janusz Piechocinski, the deputy prime minister, saying menthol-flavoured cigarettes should be considered a traditional product, like the Swedish snus – powdered tobacco placed under the lip – and be exempt from the directive.

According to the World Lung Foundation, Poland is one of the EU's biggest consumers of cigarettes, with annual consumption of 1,586 per capita, twice the level in Britain.

Nearly one in five cigarettes sold is menthol-flavoured, compared with one in 10 in Sweden and less than one in 100 in Spain, Austria and Slovakia.

"Menthol cigarettes were introduced to Poland in 1953 and Polish smokers have developed a unique taste for them," said Magdalena Włodarczyk, representing British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International, which together have a 99% share of the Polish market. "There is no reason why they should get hit so hard over this."

Poland is also the second largest producer of tobacco in the EU, with Polish tobacco farms employing more than 60,000 people. It is the seventh largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the world, with five processing sites and six factories.

Lech Ostrowski, head of the National Union of Tobacco Farmers, representing 7,000 producers, said burley, the tobacco used in the production of menthol cigarettes because of its flavour-absorbing properties, accounted for nearly 40% of Poland's production.

"We can't all switch to growing Virginia, because the market will simply not accommodate it and prices will fall," he said.

A report commissioned by Poland's tobacco industry said the new legislation would destroy 30,000 jobs in production, manufacturing and distribution. It would cost the country up to 9bn zloty (£1.75bn) in lost tax revenue every year, because menthol smokers would swap to cigarettes smuggled in from Belarus and Ukraine.