EU Commission refuses to present facts behind snus ban

[Reynard]

Christian Engström - blog

Content:

Christian Engström, member of the European Parliament for the Swedish Pirate Party, has put a written question to the Commission, and asked it what scientific studies the ban on traditional Swedish smoke-free tobacco product snus is based on. The European Commission answers that it is aware of a number of scientific studies, but it will not disclose which ones.

”The Commission refuses to present facts because it doesn’t have any. This strengthens the suspicions that commissioner Dalli, who was forced to resign over the issue, was planning to let he future of snus be determined by bribes,” says Christian Engström.

Snus may currently not be sold in the EU outside Sweden, and the draft for a revised tobacco products directive maintains the ban. According to the EU anti-corruption unit Olaf, this is because snus producer Swedish Match refused to pay a bribe of 60 million euro to former commissioner Dalli to have the ban lifted.

”It is high time that the EU adopted a fact based policy regarding snus,” says Christian Engström.

In an opinion piece in The Parliament magazine last week, Christian Engström demanded that if the Commission is unable to present proper scientific studies to back up the ban on snus, the Commission’s President Mr. Barroso must appoint a senior commissioner to head the health and consumer directorate general (DG Sanco), in order to investigate what has happened under Dalli, and what parts of the draft tobacco products directive need to be revised.

[Snusdog]

That sounds really good and is the type of response I figured SM was banking on after the scandal broke.

However, you guys in the EU help me out here...........is this a call that carries any real weight in the Parliament........in other words, is it something to which the parliament (according to its procedures) will have to respond..........or will it be treated as merely a shrill voice on the extreme of the issue that can be ignored and dismissed by the process.

In other words, is this Sweden saying what the EU expects her to say

Or

Is this a representative making an official request that the court has x amount of time by law to answer or the process is invalid

[Skell18]

That sounds really good and is the type of response I figured SM was banking on after the scandal broke.

However, you guys in the EU help me out here...........is this a call that carries any real weight in the Parliament........in other words, is it something to which the parliament (according to its procedures) will have to respond..........or will it be treated as merely a shrill voice on the extreme of the issue that can be ignored and dismissed by the process.

In other words, is this Sweden saying what the EU expects her to say

Or

Is this a representative making an official request that the court has x amount of time by law to answer or the process is invalid

With the EU, no-one knows, its such a shambles that most nations just ignore it. Whack jobs and terrorists take France and Italy to the ECHR all the time, they just ignore the rulings and do what they please, i wish we were more like that sometimes!

[YfirBaggari]

Why is it they get away with hiding facts like that?
It's like hiding a runners time and still claim he won the race with a worldrecord speed, you just better beleave it.

[Mordred]

However, you guys in the EU help me out here...........is this a call that carries any real weight in the Parliament........in other words, is it something to which the parliament (according to its procedures) will have to respond..........or will it be treated as merely a shrill voice on the extreme of the issue that can be ignored and dismissed by the process.

You need to understand that the European Parliament is a joke. It has no power whatsoever. The only body that can bring legislation to the vote before the parliament is the commission. The parliament can, in theory, veto said legislation, but in practice, this never happens because most of the people that are in it were backbenchers in their own countries or otherwise incompetent and they tow the party line if they're even present. But even if the parliament were full of 100% committed and reasonable people, they could not lift the snus ban. They could, at best, stop these new restrictions.

EU legislation is a ratchet in it's purest form. You can crank it in the direction of more restrictions and sometimes, it'll be harder than others and you might even have to try a couple of times. But eventually, you'll make it there. However, it's utterly impossible to move it in the other direction. Unless you're the commission, then you could try...

[GN Tobacco Sweden AB]

http://m.expressen.se/nyheter/eu-bos...t/?partner=www

[GN Tobacco Sweden AB]

EU boss secret ransom note on snus Trade Ewa Björling's statement about "all-out war" on the Swedish snus has made European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso furious. In a top secret document - the statement of the EU's new tobacco directive - he directed on page 18 serious allegations against Sweden and threatens to drag the government to court, can reveal in Expressen

[whalen]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Skell18]

Drag them to court and do what exactly? Throw the whole country in jail? Hahahahahahahaha