Proposition 55K0210

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 24 janvier 1977 relative à la protection de la santé des consommateurs en ce qui concerne les denrées alimentaires et les autres produits, concernant la publicité pour les produits à base de tabac.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Els Van Hoof
LE Catherine Fonck
Vooruit Karin Jiroflée

Submission date

Aug. 5, 2019

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

consumer protection advertising tobacco public health

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI Open Vld N-VA MR PVDA | PTB VB

Abstained from voting

LDD

Party dissidents ¶

• Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open Vld) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Feb. 20, 2020 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Only the title of the proposed legislation is already full of mouth. It is therefore important for me to explain the report quite briefly, especially since the readers of the report will have noticed that there are still a number of legislative proposals linked to it.

The original bill on which we are based comes from Ms. Fonck and concerns the prohibition of tobacco advertising. During the discussion in the committee, a number of legislative proposals were added to this. It concerns the legislation proposed by Ms. Van Hoof on the sale of tobacco producers in automates and on the advertising and sale of tobacco products. There was another additional proposal from Ms. Fonck on increasing the fight against smoking. A bill by Ms. Jiroflée was also included in the discussion and concerns a complete ban on advertising for tobacco products.

During a subsequent meeting of the committee, two other bills were submitted by Ms. Fonck, the first concerning the smoke-free space scheme. This is specifically about the smoking ban, when children are in the car. Now the limit is 16 years, and the proposal is to raise that limit to 18 years. The second bill opposes the general acceptance and distribution of e-cigarettes.

The committee then decided to proceed with the proposal for a general ban on the advertising of tobacco products by Ms. Fonck and Ms. Jiroflée, as discussed today. At the same time, we also voted on the smoking ban in the car. This was sent back to the committee and will therefore be discussed at another time.

It was also decided to refer the proposals on points of sale, automatic machines and e-cigarettes to working groups in which MEPs work with each other.

During the preparation of the bill on the prohibition of advertising, we requested advice from the Minister of Medium, Self-Employed and SMEs, as well as the Foundation Against Cancer, UNIZO and, since they were involved in the further discussions, also Perstablo and ProDiPresse. All the aforementioned opinions were included in the report.

Those who have already started with the matter know that there is already a ban on advertising on tobacco products, of which there are a number of exceptions, such as advertising on the front pages of tobacco and newspaper stores and on their tone banks.

Ms Fonck, who submitted the bill, pointed out during the general discussion that it was very strange to start regulating neutral cigarette packaging in January, but at the same time to allow exceptions to advertising, so she wanted to address that now. The co-sponsor, Ms. Jiroflée, added that this is a step towards the smoke-free society we are working on.

If you check out the written report, you will see that all colleagues agree with the proposal. Thus, it was unanimously approved, but an amendment to the original bill was adopted, leaving the entry into force of the law a little away: originally the law would come into force in six months, but that date is now fixed on 1 January 2021 to meet the demand of the stores to get in order with the administration and arrangement of their store. So they have enough time for it.

I assume that the voting behavior in the plenary session will be the same as in the committee. This text is ⁇ not the last one you will receive from the Health Committee on Tobacco, as there are still a lot of legislative proposals ready to be discussed.

Colleagues, the N-VA group will support the present bill, as we also clearly emphasized in the committee. Although we have already been able to significantly reduce the problem of smoking, this country still counts 19% of smokers. That is 5% less than 10 years ago and 10% less than 20 years ago. The number is steadily declining, but there is still a lot of work on the shelf.

It may be interesting to note that the number of smokers among men is one suit higher. Whether that’s because we, women, are more stress-resistant or that men get from our stress, is completely outside of our discussion. Also interesting to note is that even smoking is community tinted. In Flanders, the number of smokers, especially among young people, has already declined much more sharply than in Brussels and Wallonia, with 8% respectively, compared to 15 and 14%.

Smoking remains the leading cause of premature death in Europe, costing us, despite the income from excise duties, 11 billion euros annually. This was clearly demonstrated by the SOCOST study in the previous legislature.

When we take measures related to tobacco, we also try to take into account who already smokes. Three-quarters of smokers would like to quit. The smokers here will be able to testify that it is a very serious addiction and that therefore it is very difficult to get rid of it. Therefore, our efforts in the committee are primarily aimed at limiting the influx and ensuring that as few people start smoking as possible.

I will then come to our position on the proposal on the prohibition of advertising. We see that most smokers have started young, as half of them have between 16 and 18 years old to start smoking. Adolescents are sensitive to addictive substances and to advertising. The proposal will therefore protect not only the general population, but young people in particular from starting to smoke.

As for advertising, I have taken the table for those who could not attend the hearings. This teaches us that after the sharp rise in the early 2000s and the first prohibitions on tobacco advertising, the number of young people who use tobacco decreases. Young people are sensitive to advertising and it is therefore very clear that advertising plays a major role in starting to smoke. Today we just want to prevent them from starting to smoke.

In summary, our group supports any proposal that benefits the health of our population and in particular that of young people. We are pleased that together in the committee we have been able to work very constructively to find a solution that is equitable for the sector as well. They really need time to adjust. Sometimes we disagree and there are spicy discussions, but this time we were able to work together especially constructively. I would like to congratulate the applicants of the proposal for the constructive cooperation.

As the rapporteur has already said, we are working on this in a working group. I hope that in this way we can adopt many more proposals to protect the health of the population. I look forward to further cooperation.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, environmentalists have never hesitated between health and tobacco, even though it has cost them in the past. In 1997, Ecolo and Agalev were in opposition and supported the law banning tobacco advertising that came into force in August 2003. But the law did not prohibit all advertising. The Cancer Foundation has repeated for decades – and this is the first of its recommendations – that advertising has a detrimental influence on smokers, especially on the youngest. The ban on tobacco advertising has had obvious effects on the number of smokers.

Thirty years later, we are finally here! We have completely removed tobacco advertising. We will take a step further towards a generation without tobacco.

I would like to thank my colleagues in the Health Committee for the constructive discussion. It is also a good augur for the work that we will start as a working group to go even further on the limitation of places of sale, product exposure and control measures. Without prefiguring the outcome, I think we are in a good trend.

The road to a tobacco-free generation is still very long. A global and inter-federal anti-tobacco plan remains the most appropriate tool for achieving this. We must expand our range of interventions by further integrating prevention by combining actions on the economic, social and health aspects. Several European countries have achieved this by establishing national and regional governance to place tobacco control as a public health priority. Their governments have set themselves a clear goal: all today’s children must become the first generation without tobacco.

The Consumer Health Protection Act of 1977 prohibits advertising or sponsorship of tobacco products. If Belgium had taken a big step, it still had a step to take to get things done. Until then, we still allowed advertising inside tobacco stores and bookstores and on their front doors.

According to the latest tobacco survey, one in five smokers ⁇ having seen a tobacco advertisement in the last three months, mainly in bookstores and tobacco stores. However, 69% of respondents in this survey believed that tobacco advertising should be stopped.

The text presented by Ms. Fonck and our colleagues is an important text. We would like to thank her for her relentless struggle against tobacco. Dear colleagues, we will probably have disagreements in other cases, but for this one, we congratulate you for your hard work. We will support you today.

We are also pleased to find that an amendment has been adopted to postpone these measures until 1 January 2021 and thus respond to the legitimate appeal of all bookstores and all tobacco stores that will need to adjust their trade to meet a financial loss. It is a fact!

I am going to tell you something huge: tobacco kills! It is huge! But what is even more important today is the number of active smokers. What is even more enormous is to see, through these active smokers, unfortunately, all passive smokers. Tobacco often kills each other, but always in the pain, in that of those who smoke, smoked, but also in that of families.

40 years ago, I was a passive smoker, like many of you, in the back of the car of my parents who both smoked. It was normal, it was banal, it was life, it was before. 30 years ago and for 20 years, I was an active smoker. I was young, maybe con, influential and above all influenced. Today I am liberated from this slavery and I am very happy with it.

As a father, I will do everything to make sure my son never smokes. I’m not going to ban it because I don’t believe in the ban. But I will do everything: listening, information exchanging with him, and I will also support texts like the one we propose today. I will do it because I don’t want to see him suffer and because I don’t want to suffer with him. I will do it simply because I love it. That’s why, just recently with the PS group, I’ll press the green button and it will somehow be a small declaration of love. I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I can inform you that the Flemish Interest will support this proposal. After all, it is a framework in the fight against tobacco and smoking and therefore in the fight against cancer.

The only observation we had is the fact that the newspaper merchants – who are the main sellers of the product displayed here – see some of their income disappear. However, the amendment approved in the committee also addressed this. As I said, we will support the proposal.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, briefly, I would like to indicate on behalf of the MR group that we will support this text, in particular for two specific reasons.

First, because the fight against tobacco consumption must continue. This is a public health issue. Considering that any form of public advertising can only encourage this harmful consumption, it was necessary to reduce it. This reduction is part of our program.

Secondly, this law proposed to vote today incorporates the amendment that the MR has deposited to give time to the sector, to our bookstores, those self-employed who have undergone many legislative changes for several years, impacting their activity of proximity and social connection in a neighborhood. Now they are only 3,500. It was also in the context of this attention that we had asked, during the committee work, the opinions of the sector and the trade federations to adopt a law applicable within a reasonable time, that is, that takes into account the difficulties of this network of nearby independent workers.

For this reason, amended, this bill now provides for the entry into force of the ban on advertising to the public in almost a year, January 1, 2021. This gives librarians more time to adapt, which was indispensable in order not to aggravate their difficulties, while guaranteeing the public health interest.

I thank and welcome the very constructive work done in the commission.

Mr. Speaker, I support the comments of my colleagues, but I would like to add a few details to emphasize the importance of this fight against tobacco, which I have been conducting together with Ms. Fonck since the previous legislature.

What is the importance? One in five Belgians smoke. Addiction, of course, is not a self-choice, but the consequences are undeniable. Smoking in our country is responsible for 15,000 deaths each year. That’s 40 deaths a day. To imagine it even more plastic, that is one plane per week.

All this costs the various Belgian governments many billions of euros, especially in the field of health. The figures I just gave come from the 2018 Health Survey and are obviously alarming. In particular, we should avoid young people starting to smoke.

In the previous legislatures, too, many steps were taken. Two legislatures ago, there was a ban on smoking in the hospital. In the previous legislature, we worked on raising the excise taxes on tobacco. There is a better refund of the starter package of smoking medication. We introduced the neutral package. There is a ban on smoking in the car. We have set the age for purchasing a package at 18 years.

Of course, the work is not finished yet. It is important that we continue this powerful overall approach. I think that the WHO puts forward three important principles in the field of addiction. First, the price must be increased. Second, accessibility should be reduced. Third, the attractiveness should be reduced.

The bill that is presented today, and which I have also submitted, is about reducing attractiveness, which the WHO also considers important.

I am glad that we have already approved this today. Soon the neutral package will be introduced. First of all, we should avoid increasing advertising in the newspaper trade. Since the neutral package will reduce the attractiveness of smoking, it is somewhat contradictory that there too the investments will rise in terms of advertising because the package makes it less attractive to smoke.

We need to go even further than what is voted today. I am pleased that an informal working group has been established to further reflect and look at the economic aspect.

As colleague Creemers said, we have therefore submitted a number of legislative proposals, both around the unique points of sale and around the reduction of tobacco machines. The newspaper trade is also a requesting party. We see that one also evolves abroad to unique sales points. This plays a role in the second point of the World Health Organization, which says tobacco should be made less accessible. This is especially important for young people.

I hope that in this informal working group we can quickly come to a conclusion, find a majority, and with those proposals quickly get to the plenary session and approve them. We must avoid those 15,000 deaths a year and we must continue to take action. Therefore, I also support the initiative of the National Coalition Against Tobacco, which wants to evolve towards a tobacco-free society.

Mr. Speaker, I will be less lyrical than Mr. Rigot. Maybe it will be for another topic.

We have known for many years that tobacco is carcinogenic. The prohibition of tobacco advertising is therefore a logical measure in the interests of public health. Tobacco advertising has been banned in our country for many years, but there were exceptions to this law. This is often the case in our country: there are laws and there are exceptions. Thus, it is still possible to make advertising on the forehead and in the tobacco store itself. Completely ban advertising is a demand of the Cancer Foundation and is finally on the agenda today. With the PVDA we support this.

There was also an additional reason to do this. By introducing a neutral packaging for cigarettes, there is a legitimate fear that the tobacco industry would compensate for this neutral packaging with additional advertising in and on the front of the stores. Direct and indirect advertising is a key strategy for the tobacco industry to make and keep people addicted to tobacco products, making them billions of profits. The tobacco industry was therefore eagerly taking advantage of the current exception. Many advertising posters hang in and around schools and that is not a coincidence.

Research shows how the tobacco industry is actively targeting young people, as this is very effective for them. The more young people are exposed to tobacco advertising, according to research, the more likely they will use tobacco later. Young learned, old done, and the tobacco industry has understood this very well. I also often see it in my practice as a general doctor: the sooner people start smoking, the more difficult it is often to get rid of that addiction at a later age. Seven out of ten smokers have started to regret and two out of three would like to quit smoking.

The health benefits of abolishing the exception are indisputable, but we know that many newspaper stores make their income from that sale and we, like the Cancer Foundation, support the idea of exploring how we can help those stores toward a reconversion with the sale of other products.

There is still much work to be done to come up with a coherent policy to reduce tobacco consumption in our country. For example, Belgium spends only 28 cents per inhabitant on prevention, where the international recommendation is to spend 2 euros per person.

We do not decide on this, I have heard you say, that is a competence of the provinces. Even in this case, it is clear: to reach a coherent policy on tobacco reduction; we can only find that the various state reforms are a problem. While the tobacco industry is globally organized, it is difficult for us to develop a coherent policy due to the unnecessary and costly fragmentation of the powers in our country.

This did not prevent us from working constructively together in the Health Committee on the various bills that lie on the table. We of the PVDA want to continue to actively support them.

Today we could read that Belgium climbs from 17th to 10th place on the Tobacco Control Scale. Seven banks ahead. But it can be much better. And if we want to do it better, we come out of course in advertising. We know the negative impact of good tobacco advertising. It generates...

(The speaker coughs for a long time)

This is not due to smoking, let that be very clear. (The Hilarity)

It generates lucrative income and continues to provide a new stream of smokers, so that the tobacco industry continues to perform. In particular, this leads to serious tobacco-related conditions, from which many people die prematurely. In Belgium, 20,000 people die prematurely each year from tobacco-related diseases.

Fortunately, we have already taken a lot of action in terms of advertising. Advertising for tobacco products is still being restricted. It is only permitted in our country in very exceptional cases: on the facade or behind the counter of a tobacco store or newspaper store where tobacco products are sold. But let that newspaper shop now just be a place where very often young people hang around. They talk about it in the morning before school, buy their snacks in the afternoon and after school time another candy. Therefore, they are constantly in contact with that yet very inventive and – let’s say – often very attractive advertising for tobacco.

So today we are ⁇ pleased that we can also close that door further, because the sp.a-fraction wants to fully join the initiative Generation Smoke-free. We strive for a society in which every child can grow up without smoking.

I would like to thank all my colleagues for the extremely fine cooperation in dealing with these tobacco proposals. I sincerely hope that we will also be able to work together in the future to take a few more steps forward. Given the proposals already submitted, which we have already discussed in a working group, we can still do a number of things that meet the demand of all health workers, but especially the health of our children and young people.

This is not a declaration of love. It is rather a declaration of total dislike for tobacco. I have seen too many patients suffer and die. For these patients and for our young people, who need to be ⁇ protected from tobacco, we still have to take steps.

Today, a new phase is passed. She is important. The goal is obviously not to point the finger on the smokers, but rather to continue to accompany them to get out of smoking. The goal here is, through advertising, to protect first and foremost non-smokers and especially young people. These, as we know, are highly exposed to the fearful strategy of cigarette smokers, who use and abuse all the tricks and all the strings to have ⁇ attractive advertisements in order to attract our youth to tobacco. They make their presentations hyper-attractive, with the logo of the brands, while, despite this, we try to put neutral packages there.

This stage had to be passed. This is done today. But the anti-tobacco strategy does not end there. One in three cancers, 14,000 premature deaths, thousands of patients suffering from cardiovascular or pulmonary pathologies are the result of smoking. Combating this is the goal of the public health strategy that we want to follow. I am happy that we can go through these steps together.

As for the bookmakers, I have had many contacts with their federations. The impact may not be negligible on their turnover. At the same time, they welcomed this progress positively. Like them, I pledge that the number of points of sale in Belgium be reduced. This would then allow them to be reserved for bookstores and small merchants, exercising greater control, in particular to protect our youth. For comparison, France has twice as many points of sale as Belgium, while France is six times larger.

The measure will come into force on 1 January 2021 at the same time as the total obligation of the neutral package. It is obviously consistent to do so simultaneously but, above all, not to allow a package on presentations with tobacco logos.

I will not stop here, you understand. Others among you are also leading this struggle. We have this working group. I hope that we will be able to reach a good unanimity in the vote but also on other tobacco-related issues.

Thank you, in any case, for this very constructive collaboration in the commission. I would also like to congratulate, on behalf of all of us, the Cancer Foundation but also the National Alliance against Tobacco as well as all the doctors and caregivers who invest in their daily lives. Their goal, which I hope will become ours, is to move forward and create tomorrow the famous non-tobacco generations that they carry right.

Let us continue this fight together, first and foremost for patients, but also to protect our youth and non-smokers!

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, we could indeed no longer tolerate that, although tobacco advertising was in principle prohibited, an exception was still provided for buralists and newspaper merchants selling tobacco.

We had to ensure some coherence in our struggle against tobacco addiction and the pursuit of a generation without tobacco, and this, with real political voluntarism. It also shows that the Belgian population we represent, including smokers, understands this goal. A survey conducted by the Cancer Foundation found that the majority of respondents supported the adoption of more drastic anti-tobacco measures, including a total ban on advertising in retail outlets. The population therefore seems to have understood that the adoption of a national anti-tobacco plan, in which the end of all advertising for tobacco, is a high public health requirement, with tobacco being the main cause of lung cancer favouring also that of the breast, the ORL sphere or even the colon.

Tobacco is also a high risk factor for other diseases including cardiovascular diseases, chronic bronchitis and various respiratory diseases. It is responsible for more than 20,000 premature deaths each year in our country. This anti-tobacco plan should thus be a priority of the next federal government in terms of public health as well as compliance with our international commitments, since Belgium has ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention for anti-tobacco, which emphasizes that a global ban on advertising will reduce the consumption of tobacco products.

I am pleased that Parliament did not wait for a full-time government to engage in this plan. This is about ensuring, as I pointed out, consistency with our anti-tobacco policy. How can we, indeed, admit advertising in certain stores and in their outskirts when we banned it on packages through the introduction of the neutral package?

Thro ⁇ the committee debates, we were contacted by buralists and bookshops concerned about this bill and its consequences for their sector and their future. We must understand the management difficulties that this measure will create for their trade and understand their feeling that their trade is already facing a number of constraints that mitigate their profit margin without counting the competition of the big brands. But they must also understand our duty to protect our population, which Ms. Fonck reminded, and in particular young people, of active smoking as passive and, consequently, of the incentive effect of tobacco advertising.

Thus, a transitional provision was envisaged with an entry into force not in six months, but on 1 January 2021, in order to allow traders to adapt.

Nevertheless, let’s not lose sight of the fact that in addition to this, we will have to make every effort to limit the number of tobacco sales points in order to compensate for their loss of turnover, just as we will have to help them diversify their sources of income so that they no longer depend on tobacco sales in the long run.

Mr. Speaker, my argument is not about the defense of tobacco. I say that in advance.

My argument is that I am concerned. I will not defend tobacco, Mr. Rigot. I find it wrong to fall back on his personal life. For example, I can tell you that my father died of lung cancer, and there was more tar in his lungs than on the highway. He had seven children, Mr. Rigot. I would like to hear you talk about how you were sitting in the car. It was so with us too. There were seven children. No one has smoked, and a few of them have brought it very far into the sports world.

My story is not there. My story is about the surveillance state. I wanted to intervene earlier when Ms. Jiroflée said so beautifully that there is a lot here on the banks of the Parliament. This is really what worries me. Today, advertising for tobacco is banned. I am against tobacco. Those who smoke today are playing roulette with their own lives. I can understand all of that.

Because you said it so beautifully, Mrs. Jiroflée, I decided to intervene. I saw in the program for the next working week: prohibiting the sale to minors of metal patterns with nitrogen monoxide. Anyone who has worked in the hospitality industry will know that one has slides full of there, because it is used to spray shrimp. But here we will soon make a law against it.

Last year, a camel shot a bull at the fireworks, and fireworks were banned by the Flemish Parliament.

This afternoon we started with the questioning. I still hear Mr. Geens say that the State Council yesterday abolished a law banning advertising of gambling agencies. Today there is a bill forbidding gambling up to 21 years of age. Publicity is no longer allowed. I don’t know if there is a sense of reality here. If you look at football today, you can see that 16 of the first-class football teams and an enormous number of cycling teams advertise gambling agencies.

We are working on a prohibited society.

I am not advocating today for the defense of smoking, but what is next?

The obesity? Obesity is a civilisation disease. I suffer from it myself, but it is my own fault. Will you soon ban sugar-sweetened beverages or advertising for them? What is next? The Alcohol? There are far more deaths from alcohol addiction than from cigarettes. Could fossil fuels soon be the turn?

I think that the government has the task and the moral obligation to make citizens aware of the danger, but whoever ignores the danger then does not want to know it or does not care about it. This is still the free choice of the individual.

I will abstain from voting. I’m not talking about tobacco, but about the fact that we have become a surveillance state, with all sorts of annoying laws that will provide a legal basis for intolerance.

I conclude with the words of a very famous writer, whom you undoubtedly know, Mr. President. The Argentinian Mario Vargas Llosa, a chain smoker, once said: “To commit little by little suicide is a right that should be on the list of the most basic human rights.”