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CRONIN: Is the EU in the sway of Big Tobacco?  

Maybe there's still hope for journalism when the News of the World manages to squeeze in a story or two unrelated to Michael Jackson. "European zealots", the paper told us on Sunday, are demanding a ban on smoking outside pubs and offices. The ever-reliable Godfrey Bloom, newly re-elected MEP for Ukip, was rolled out to fulminate against this latest affront to his nation's sovereignty. "It's beyond the nanny state," he said. "It's the bully state. Do they want to close down the English pub?" . . .

the sad fact is that EU officials have not been sufficiently tough in standing up to the tobacco industry representatives that have been strenuously lobbying against an EU-wide smoking ban. The lobbyists have resorted to a sophisticated and sometimes duplicitous campaign in trying to advance their threadbare case that smoking isn't really that harmful. Top-level officials have been quite literally bought by the tobacco industry. Pavel Telicka, the former EU commissioner for health, now works for British American Tobacco, setting up appointments for the firm with his old colleagues in officialdom. Others have been charmed into submission; one former commissioner told me he was convinced that Philip Morris represented the progressive side of the industry. It never dawned on him that the firm had sunk gargantuan sums into making him believe just that by, for example, setting up a medical institute bearing its name.

No national administration would allow paedophiles a say in setting child welfare policies. So why should the views of Big Tobacco on issues of health be taken seriously? And no, I don't think this analogy is too extreme. According to the World Health Organisation, half of the children on this planet have to breathe air polluted by smoke.

This week's move towards creating a "smoke-free environment" across the EU by 2012 is superficially positive, but in reality quite a timid move. The commission's ban will not be legally binding but will rely on the goodwill of national governments to put it into effect. . . .

At the cost of five million lives each year, smoking is the top cause of preventable death in the world. The industry that seeks to profit from this misery is beneath contempt – it's about time our policy-makers started treating it that way.

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