Mr Chairman, excellencies, honourable ministers, distinguished delegates, dear Zsuzsanna Jakab, colleagues and friends,
This year, we’re marking a decade of progress since the entry into force of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a 21st century, modern-day public health treaty. And there is much to celebrate, but I’d like to start by considering the lessons handed down by our ancestors – the anti-tobacco pioneers of 400 years ago.
When Europeans first campaigned against the evils of tobacco, a plant brought to this continent from the Americas when the New World was discovered, their analysis was really very modern. The King of England stated that smoking was “loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain [and] dangerous to the lungs.” And we can all agree with that.
Yet their solutions were rather more controversial, such as excommunicating tobacco consumers, or ordering the execution of smokers, splitting their noses and internal exile. Looking back, the modern generation of anti-tobacco campaigners might applaud the zeal of these early trailblazers, while deploring their methods. These days, smoking bans are generally enforced by fines, while advances against the tobacco industry are agreed by our elected representatives.
And yet there are lessons that need to be learned from the past, because – and this is the key point – the extreme hardline approach to ending smoking didn’t work. Although James I of England condemned tobacco in 1604, pipe-smoking doctors dismissed his ideas.
While smoking was condemned across Europe by influential figures for hundreds of years, it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that an alliance of doctors, medical researchers, politicians and other opinion formers (curiously a ground breaking alliance between the Old continent and the New World where everything started) all agreed that the damage done by this modern plague had to be confronted.
They made progress because they had the best arguments, and understood that successful campaigning results from persuasion rather than coercion. Yet that’s not enough – because we face a powerful and pernicious enemy. It seems incredible to imagine that this battle will have to be fought again, but there remain serious obstacles to making tobacco a thing of the past. It’s true that 50 of 53 European member states are Parties to the Convention and that the continent leads the world in tobacco tax measures.
But there is much, much more to be done. Member states need to tackle a wide disparity in the retail price of cigarettes, introduce comprehensive smoking bans in all public places, ensure that packaging carries large health warnings, ban indirect advertising, promotion and sponsorship and help consumers to quit. Cross cutting aspects cannot be missed, such as targeting vulnerable groups like children, women and tobacco growers.
European states were often the first to introduce such measures, but early successes in a small number of countries has not spread across the continent. Once the leader in global anti-tobacco measures, Europe now lags behind other regions of the world. There are steps we can take, and the first are straightforward. The post-2015 agenda will hopefully provide the necessary priority for this challenging confrontation. Implementation of the Convention, in full, will accelerate the anti-tobacco initiatives and help meet our goal of 30% reductions in tobacco use among over-15s by 2025.
But even this goal is only a milestone on the road to our real ambition – a Europe free from tobacco-related illness and addiction. This may sound like an appealing goal to those of us in this room, but of course there is another group of people who view this prospect with horror – the men and women who run the tobacco industry and who benefit from the tobacco business.
They are Problem Number One in this fight and unless we can overcome their strategies, we can’t win. Make no mistake, they are formidable opponents and as we’ve seen around the world, they have had their successes too. Tobacco consumption is rising in the developing world, while new products like e-cigarettes and old products with new packaging, such as waterpipes, threaten to chain new generations to addiction.
New legal counter-suits threaten progress by anti-tobacco campaigners, for example the investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms within trade agreements, which can be used by tobacco businesses to bypass national and European Union courts. And of course, there’s old-fashioned legal action but on a huge scale, as when tobacco companies initiated legal action against the UK for billions of dollars over the introduction of plain packaging.
The increasingly belligerent message to governments, especially in smaller or poorer countries, is clear - further action against tobacco will cause legal action, which may be protracted and expensive. If that approach is successful, we may see a reversal of the positive steps of the last 10 years.
Parties rightly identify interference by the tobacco industry as the major threat to the implementation of the WHO FCTC in the most recent reporting cycle and that means we must be vigilant. Take the recent example of lobbying by the American Chamber of Commerce, a large private US-based group, which reportedly sought to dilute advances in tobacco-control regulation on the territories of several FCTC Parties, actions that have a seriously detrimental effect on public health.
The tobacco industry has also tried to derail efforts to implement the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products. One flagrant example is the work conducted by the International Trade and Investment Center (ITIC), which promotes industry solutions for illicit trade in tobacco products and for the industry-controlled tracking and tracing systems known as Codentify.
The trade in illicit tobacco accounts for an estimated 10% of the global tobacco market. Criminals, including organized gangs, are able to offer a new form of duty-free produce – free from government duty, which helps to fund healthcare for example, and free from any moral duty to their newly ensnared consumers, who will very probably become ill one day because of their addiction. This is a lose-lose situation as it impacts negatively on current revenues and increases future health care expenditures.
This is an issue of profound importance and that’s why this year we’re resuming our call for governments to ratify the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products. So far nine countries have done so, but we need another 31 to make it international law. And, we count on this region to become a world leader in this area.
The threat to the progress of our movement is very real, be it from criminals or tobacco manufacturers, or from the forgetfulness of legislators too busy with other issues, or even the low priority given by governments who feel this is no longer a problem. It’s clear from our history that it’s possible to win the argument and yet lose the battle, that it’s possible to make the right analysis and still choose a counterproductive policy.
It’s the job of the Convention Secretariat, the WHO, other international agencies and civil society groups to ensure that we fight on and ensure that the people who need reminding of their duties to the public – legislators and ministers, government officials, journalists and others – are constantly reminded of the need for action.
The Convention, the Protocol and the European roadmap offer the route to a better future, but they only carry weight if they inspire effective action. We are ready to support you in this route through a strong partnership between the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the Convention Secretariat.
Thanks