EUROPEAN NEWS BULLETIN

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Globalink's European News Bulletin follows

Robert Weissman
Essential Information			|   Internet:	rob@essential.org


EUROPEAN NEWS BULLETIN - EU9820 25 MAY 1998

CONTENTS:

EUROPE - GENERAL

EUROPEAN UNION:  No reprieve for duty-free shops.

EUROPE - SPECIFIC COUNTRIES

ITALY: Public expenditure statistics.
SPAIN: Serventa and Venco sign deal.
UK:  Imperial keeps up overseas growth policy.
UK:  Nurse loses passive smoking claim.
UK:  Pack in the profits.

INTERNATIONAL - SPECIFIC COUNTRIES

ISRAEL: El Al Israel Airlines goes smoke-free.
USA:  BAT may be hit by new $100m claim.
USA:  Why review articles on the health effects of passive smoking 
      reach different conclusions.
ZIMBABWE:  Tobacco protest puts Zimbabwe economy at risk.


EUROPE - GENERAL

EUROPEAN UNION:  No reprieve for duty-free shops.

European Union (EU) finance ministers have reaffirmed that duty 
free shopping within the EU will be abolished in July 1999. At 
a meeting in Brussels recently, the ministers rejected strong 
pressure from airport and shipping groups, and the German and 
Irish governments, to review the issue. The ministers agreed
however, to ask the European Commission to outline regional aid
measures to assist areas such as airports and seaports where
the number of duty free shops have increased. 

Source:  The Independent 20/5/98; Daily Telegraph 20/5/98; The
Times 20/5/98; The Guardian 20/5/98; International Herald Tribune
20/5/98; Financial Times 20/5/98 


EUROPE - SPECIFIC COUNTRIES

ITALY: Public expenditure statistics.

The 1997 internal final expenditure (which includes how much 
Italians and foreigners have spent in Italy) totalled  
L 1,223,652bn. In that year total expenditure on tobacco was 1.7% 
(-0.01%). Foreigners spent nearly L51,000bn (+9.7% in value and 
+7.8% in volume) in Italy in 1997. 

Source: Il Sole 24 Ore (ISO) 11 May 1998  p.2 
Language: ITALIAN No. 06625418
Source:  Information Access Company 21/5/98


SPAIN: Serventa and Venco sign deal.

A collaboration agreement has been signed between Spanish cigarette 
company Tabacalera, through its subsidiaries Serventa and Venco, 
part of the Pepsico group, whereby Venco will hand over operation 
and user rights of its snack and  soft-drink vending machines for
a five-year period. Under the terms of the agreement Venco will 
transfer 1,243 vending machines to Serventa, and 60% of its client 
base.  

Source: Expansion (EXN) 12 May 1998  p.16 
Language: SPANISH No. 06625437
Source:  Information Access Company 21/5/98


UK:  Imperial keeps up overseas growth policy.

Imperial Tobacco's profits for the six months to March 1998 rose 
just 2% to L146m but its international operating profits rose 
by a quarter to L45m due in part to its acquisition of Rizla, 
the world's largest cigarette paper manufacturer. When Imperial's 
L650m purchase of Douwe Egberts Van Nelle is completed in July, 
over 30% of its operating profits will come from overseas. 
Although overall, the UK tobacco market continues to decline, 
by 4% - twice the normal rate of decline, Gareth Davis, Imperial's 
Chief Executive, acknowledged that the cigarette paper business 
was "performing strongly" and added that the company benefited 
from consumers "down-grading to mid-price and low-price" cigarettes
including roll-your-own tobacco. Given this, Imperial has already 
increased productivity in its Rizla factories by 18%.

Source:  The Independent 20/5/98; The Times 20/5/98; The Guardian 
20/5/98; Daily Telegraph 20/5/98  


UK:  Nurse loses passive smoking claim.

The court case filed by Nurse Sylvia Sparrow for damages for 
passive smoking has failed in the High Court.  However, the judge 
in his ruling accepted an important principle - that employees do
have a duty to protect their employees. Nurse Sparrow  filed a 
case against her former employers, St Andrews Homes Ltd., the 
former owners of Worsley Lodge, a residential nursing home for 
the elderly in Manchester.  She sought damages for the chronic 
asthma she developed as a result of her prolonged exposure (over 
a period of five years) to elderly residents' tobacco smoke. She
claimed that her employers had failed to provide a safe working 
environment for her.  Mr Justice Holland ruled however, that 
Nurse Sparrow's employers had taken all practicable steps to 
protect their employees from the hazards of tobacco smoke (from 
this it is clear that the judge accepted the principle that 
employers do have a duty to protect their employees). Furthermore,
Justice Holland did not make a ruling on the link between passive 
smoking and Mrs Sparrow's late on-set asthma.  Commenting on the
ruling, ASH noted that the Nurse Sparrow case and previous out 
of court settlements, showed that employers who fail to protect 
their employees against the damage caused by passive smoking can 
face potential claims for negligence, breach of contract or 
constructive dismissal claims with huge financial implications. 
In legal terms passive smoking cases have already had a wide 
impact on the development of common law, and on the interpretation 
of existing law (statute). Mrs Sparrow said: "The dangers of 
passive smoking will not go away, I have planted a seed, maybe 
the next person will be more successful." The Royal College of 
Nursing, who is covering all legal costs, said it would continue 
to bring forward cases until passive smoking was considered a
danger from which workers had a right to be protected. The Nurse 
Sparrow case was the first of its kind to reach the courts in 
Britain.  

Source:  The Times 22/5/98; The Independent 22/5/98; The Guardian 
22/5/98; Daily Telegraph 22/5/98; Daily Mail 22/5/98  


UK:  Pack in the profits.

In the UK the rate of decline in the domestic cigarette market 
has increased to around 4% a year.  Despite this fall, cigarette 
sales in 1996/7 increased in value terms by 1.4% from L11,128 
million to L11,284 million. Sales of cigars fell by 1.9%, down 
from L426m in 1996 to L417m in 1997. Hand rolling tobacco showed
a significant fall in value, down by 13.3% from L338m in 1996 to 
L293m in 1997, while pipe tobacco, valued at L100m was down by 8.5%
to L91m in 1997.  Overall, the cigar market is declining by around 
5% per year. Compared to 1992, 10% of men now smoke hand rolling 
tobacco.  According to the retail trade magazine, CTN, more than 60% 
of pipe tobacco is sold either in independent CTNs (Confectioners,
Tobacconists and Newsagents) or multiple grocers.  CTN also claims 
that multiple CTNs account for 7.1% of all cigarettes sold in the UK, 
while independents account for 15.4%.  Around 22% of hand rolling 
tobacco sales are made through independents, while only 6.9%
sells through multiples, and more than 25% of all pipe tobacco is 
sold through independent CTNs.

Source:  CTN 21/5/98


INTERNATIONAL - SPECIFIC COUNTRIES

ISRAEL: El Al Israel Airlines goes smoke-free.

As of June 1st 1998, all flights on El Al, the national Israeli 
airline, will be smoke free, thus completing the process which 
began in 1996 with a petition to the Supreme Court by a number 
of airline flight attendants, the Israel Cancer Association and 
a regular customer of the company.  As a result of the petition 
a special committee was appointed to examine the subject, and 
recommended gradually prohibiting smoking on all flights and
signing reciprocal agreements with foreign carriers without the
need for legislation. (Author abstract).

Source:  GLOBALink communication 21/5/98


USA:  BAT may be hit by new $100m claim.

Following the recent successful Minnesota tobacco settlement, 
three American states are calling for additional charges from US 
tobacco companies. Texas and Mississippi are demanding $3 billion 
on top of the $18 billionthey have already received, while Florida, 
hich has received $11.5 billion wants a further $2 billion. If the 
claims go through British American Tobacco could face an additional 
charge of $100 million.

Source:  The Times 22/5/98


USA:  Why review articles on the health effects of passive smoking 
reach different conclusions.

A study in the US evaluated whether the conclusions of review 
articles on the health effects of passive smoking were associated 
with article quality, the affiliations of their authors, or other 
article characteristics. Sources of data were review articles 
published from 1980 to 1995 which were identified through electronic 
searches of MEDLINE and EMBASE and from a database of symposium 
proceedings on passive smoking.  An article was included in the 
study if its stated or implied purpose was to review the scientific 
evidence that passive smoking was associated with one or more 
health outcomes.  Articles were excluded if they did not focus 
specifically on the health effects of passive smoking or if they 
were not written in English.  Review article quality was evaluated 
by two independent assessors who were trained, followed a written 
protocol, had no disclosed conflicts of interest, and were blinded 
to all study hypotheses and identifying characteristics of articles.
Article conclusions were categorised by the two assessors and by 
one of the authors. Author affiliation was classified as either 
tobacco industry affiliated or not, based on whether the authors
were known to have received funding from or participated in 
activities sponsored by the tobacco industry. Other article 
characteristics were classified by one of the authors using pre-
defined criteria.  A total of 106 reviews were identified.  
Overall, 37% (39 out of 106) of the reviews concluded that passive
smoking was not harmful to health; 74% (29 out of 39) of these 
were written by authors with tobacco industry affiliations. In
multiple logistic regression analysis controlling for article 
quality, peer review status, article topic, and year of publication, 
the only factor associated with concluding that passive smoking 
was not harmful was whether the author was affiliated with the 
tobacco industry.  The study concluded that the conclusions of 
review articles were strongly associated with the affiliations 
of their authors.  It recommended that authors of review articles 
should disclose potential financial conflicts of interest, and
readers of review articles should consider authors' affiliations 
when deciding how to judge an article's conclusions.  
(Author abstract).

Source:  JAMA 1998; 279(19): 1566-1570  20/5/98


ZIMBABWE:  Tobacco protest puts Zimbabwe economy at risk.

Zimbabwe's tobacco industry is teetering on the brink of collapse
following the fall in price of tobacco to below the break-even point 
for many of the country's producers (the commodity is Zimbabwe's 
leading export). The price has been affected by the Asian economic 
crisis and US tobacco litigation.

Source:  Financial Times 15/5/98; Financial Times 20/5/98

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