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Europe struggles to stub out smoking
All across Europe, increasingly health-conscious governments have been banning smoking in public places like hospitals, train stations, bars and restaurants. Austria, one of the few remaining countries in Western Europe to not yet institute a ban, will be tightening their anti-smoking rules beginning in 2009.The halcyon days of carefree European smoking look to be a thing of the past, right? Apparently not. As the Wall Street Journal reports today, European businesses and citizens are fighting back against the bans, lobbying desperately to hold on to their precious fire sticks.
Instead of creating across-the-board smoking bans as originally hoped, countries like France, Italy and Germany have allowed a variety of exceptions to the new rules. Federal lawsuits in Germany have allowed many restaurants to stay cig-friendly, while in Italy the Health Ministry reports there are nearly as many smokers now as when the country-wide bans went into place in 2005. It's hard to blame them when the Italian model of sanctity himself, Pope Benedict XVI, has been known to light up on occasion.
So what's really going on here? Is it that smoking is truly an inextricable component of European identity, as iconic as that Parisian cafe and a cup of coffee? Or is this something more political, a fight for personal rights in the face of governments that want to penalize us for our indulgences? Whatever the outcome, expect European rules surrounding public smoking to be clouded in a choking haze of indecision for the foreseeable future.
Filed under: Europe, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, News, Travel Health
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ben Jan 3rd 2009 8:17PM
Pope Benedict XVI is German, not Italian. :) Also, smoking laws in Germany are left up to the Bundesländer, or federal states to decide for themselves. Personally, after living there for a time, I find the occasional second hand smoke comforting and reminiscent of the memories I made there.
That said, I'm a non-smoker.
Robert Feal-Martinez Jan 5th 2009 4:44AM
This is not an issue of 'holding on to their sticks' this is an issue of choice, which any democratic country should uphold. It is also an issue about jobs and business survival in hospitality. Hundreds of thousands of businesses and well in excess of a million jobs have been lost in bars, hotels, restaurants and clubs worldwide as a result of these bans, and yet there is no evidence of smoking levels or serious illness reduction.
Bans have so obviously failed that there is now an attempt to introduce 'third hand smoke' to further demonise smokers. The so called science behind this is even more laughable than that attributed to second hand smoke, but no doubt the media will hype it up.
Politicians and political parties are now even seeing the 'light', there is an international conference in the European Parliament at the end of January where hundreds of campaigners from across Europe will listen to independent experts who will dispel all the myths of passive smoke. Details can be found at www.freedom2choose.info.
Finally the German Constitutional Court has just decided that Germany smoking bans are unconstitutional, ironic given Germany's history of hardly being a shining example of democracy.