EU Backs Partial Tobacco Ad Ban

European Union governments Monday endorsed rules stopping British American Tobacco, Philip Morris Cos. and rivals from placing magazine ads and sponsoring sports such as Formula One racing starting in August 2005.

EU health ministers also agreed to outlaw newspaper, radio and Internet tobacco advertising. The proposed ban was trimmed to exclude cinema and poster advertising after Europe’s high court found an earlier total ban went too far.

“This is another nail in the coffin of the tobacco industry,” EU Health Commissioner David Byrne said in a statement.

“Big Tobacco needs to recruit 500,000 new smokers each year to replace the ones who die prematurely due to smoking-related illnesses -- the measures we agreed today will make it more difficult for them to do that.”

Tobacco ads account for 3% of EU advertising, according to the European Commission. All EU countries already ban television ads and most forbid or restrict other forms.

In backing measures approved by the European Parliament last month, the ministers overrode objections from Germany, which said it was defending freedom of expression, and from Britain, which said the rules needed to be clearer.

In October 2000, BAT, Gallaher Group, Imperial Tobacco and Rothmans Inc. won an appeal in the European Court of Justice against an earlier ban.

They argued that cigarette advertising is a health issue rather than a free-trade issue and should be determined by individual states, not the EU’s executive arm.

A British tobacco-ad ban takes effect next year.

“We are obviously prepared to operate in a blackout in[Britain], where restrictions have been passed,” said Tim Robinson, a spokesman for Gallaher. “We operate in a blackout in France. We know how to operate in that framework.”

Cigarette companies agreed to a limit on advertising in the U.S. four years ago when they reached a $206-billion settlement with 46 states over health-care claims. The pact includes restrictions on outdoor advertising, brand-name sponsorships and distribution of free samples and apparel that display cigarette brand names.

Philip Morris spokesman Marc Fritsch declined to comment on the EU’s vote.

The commission intends before the end of 2004 to propose rules on a common list of ingredients allowed in cigarettes, requiring tobacco companies to say what additives they use.

One-third of Europeans smoke. About 60% start at or before the age of 13, according to the commission.

Governments also pledged to put in place measures restricting the access of children and adolescents to tobacco vending machines and to tobacco sales over the Internet, removing tobacco products from self-service displays, and obliging retailers to check the ages of youths who buy tobacco.