| Section | Link to Section |
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| EU Bureaucrats | EU Bureaucrats Wish To Give Up On Democracy. |
| European Union | Are Nations Within The European Union Subject To Laws Imposed By The FCTC? |
In order to support mandatory laws in EU member states that have the potential to restrict or outlaw vapes and other low-risk nicotine products, European Union bureaucrats plan to circumvent the EU's ordinary democratic procedure. If successful, they might compel EU member states to enact the strict anti-consumer legislation supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded anti-nicotine groups and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Clive Bates, the head of Counterfactual Consulting and the former director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH-UK), announced the revelation this morning in a blog post. The analysis was based on documents that were leaked from EU agencies. A article on the covert scheme was also published today in the Swedish newspaper Skaraborgs Nyheter.
Encouraging the European Commission, which will be the only voting EU delegate to the tenth Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Conference of the Parties (COP10), to vote in favor of proposals that have not been discussed or approved by the European Parliament is the main plan hatched by bureaucrats in the European Commission and European Council. In other words, EU health bureaucrats might strive to merely impose rules they prefer, bypassing democratic processes altogether.
In a question that was not made public, a Swedish member of the European Parliament asked the European Commission on October 13 that "the proposal empowers the Commission to change the EU position 'during on-the-spot coordination meetings, without a further decision of the Council."
EU Bureaucrats Wish To Give Up On Democracy.
The European Council will vote on the Commission's plan this week in a formal decision that is not available to the public. A qualified majority, or at least fifteen of the 27 EU member states, representing at least 65 percent of the EU's population, is required for it to pass.
It would take the backing of at least four nations, collectively accounting for at least 35 percent of the world's population, to block the proposal. Likely to oppose the initiative are numerous Eastern European countries as well as Sweden. Poland might also be against it. However, it might take the population of at least one of the major Western nations—France, Germany, Italy, or Spain—to reach the threshold required to thwart the plan.
According to Bates, the Council is presently drafting a text that will outline the EU's positions at the COP summit. The latitude at which Commission representatives must negotiate these views will also be specified in that text. Under the proposed strategy, elected EU officials would no longer be able to endorse views that are more restricted than those that Commission negotiators could vote for.
In essence, all 450 million EU citizens would have unrestricted negotiation power on behalf of themselves through representatives of the EU Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE), the European Commission's health office.
"The process is completely opaque—neither the parliament nor the public consultation are involved," claims Clive Bates. "The European Union negotiators have the freedom to adopt a more confrontational approach when necessary, and they will arrive in Panama for the COP-10 with hidden positions that impact the health of millions of citizens of the EU."
After much research and discussion, the European Parliament votes on a number of directives that establish EU tobacco policy. Member states have to amend their own legislation to comply with EU directives when they are passed. However, the scheme hatched by bureaucrats at the Commission would ignore the legal system and compel the EU Parliament and member states to abide by the FCTC's rulings.
According to Bates, "they intend to evade public and parliamentary scrutiny and settle it all in the closed groupthink bubble of COP-10 in Panama, in the final weeks of November." "After that, present a fait acomplis to the European Parliament and public."
Are Nations Within The European Union Subject To Laws Imposed By The FCTC?
A worldwide pact supported by the WHO, the FCTC requires its member nations to enact legislation compliant with the treaty. (Incidentally, the US is not a member of the FCTC.) This week, the European Council will decide whether to give the Commission permission to circumvent a discussion in the European Parliament and disregard national preferences for tobacco and nicotine laws at the COP10 summit.
The COP10 conference, which takes place in Panama from November 20 to 25, is anticipated to cover a wide range of topics affecting consumers of heated tobacco products, snus, nicotine pouches, and vaping goods. Decisions on those matters were deferred until this year by the FCTC Secretariat (leadership group) at the most recent biannual FCTC meeting (COP9) in 2021. As the conference draws nearer, Vaping360 will cover more COP10.
According to a Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR) briefing paper, delegates to the FCTC may vote on a number of WHO-approved policy mandates in November. These mandates include:
- Outlawing disposable and open-system (refillable) vaporizers
- Outlawing flavors for vape pens that don't contain tobacco
- charging the same tax on all nicotine products as on cigarettes
- applying the same standards to all low-risk tobacco products as to combustible tobacco
- Classifying heated tobacco products and vapour aerosols as "smoke"
- Imposing smoking bans (such as those pertaining to public usage) on non-combustible nicotine products
- Requiring low-risk items to comply with legislation requiring warnings or clear packaging
- Banning sponsorship and advertising for low-risk products
Up until now, the FCTC COP meetings have been infamously clandestine, with only FCTC-approved outside observers present and the press barred from entering. Nearly all of the observers come from the same activist groups against tobacco use that support the development of WHO tobacco policy stances.
All member nations, including those that voted against a particular restriction, must amend their national legislation to comply with the FCTC once it has been approved by a vote of signatories.
According to Clive Bates, "the Ordinary Legislative Procedure—a convoluted and drawn-out three-party embrace that ultimately requires the Commission, Council, and Parliament to reach a compromise—is primarily used to make EU tobacco policy." However, all those democratic checks and balances are undermined by the clandestine handshake between the European bureaucrats and the radicals opposed to vaping at the WHO. Rather, a complex of interests and fictitious civil society organizations supported by overconfident American billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a proponent of prohibition, will rejoice instead.
