Tobacco: manufacture, presentation and sale of products (recast of Directives 89/622/EEC, 92/41/EEC, 90/239/EEC)

In general terms, the European Parliament supports the approach and the main orientations of the Commission's proposal. This is particularly important as regards its acceptance of the Internal Market principles underlying the proposal. The amendments proposed by the Parliament are largely of a technical nature. The Commission accepts the majority in whole or in part, and in some cases subject to drafting modifications. The amendments accepted by the Commission concern the inclusion of new recitals: - to incorporate in the text an amendment underlining that the price of tobacco can influence to a large extent whether the consumption of such products begins or ceases, particularly as regards youngsters; - to foster research for new methods for measuring tar, nicotine and CO yields and and accepting ISO standards provisionally; - to encourage research and technical progress in establishing the exposure to toxins and other harmful substances caused by the use of tobacco products; - to encourage Member States to make use of the opportunities available to them to tax tobacco products more heavily; - to point out that the directive must form part of an overall strategy to combat the use of tobacco products aimed at specially at young people and women; - to develop the international standards on tobacco products within the WHO; Other amendments aim to clarify certain aspects of the proposal. As regards the amendments or parts of the amendments which have not been accepted by the Commission, these are for the following reasons: - their objective and formulation is not sufficently clear; - they would not be consistent with Community law including other Community Directives; - they would upset the balance of interests; - they would be too ambitious at this stage given the level of Community legislation.�