A Spanish NGO is pushing to stub out smoking and create Europe’s first tobacco-free generation.
The latest to jump on the generational tobacco ban bandwagon is Spanish NGO NoFumadores, which managed to get the European Commission (EC) to register its European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) entitled “Call to achieve a tobacco-free environment and the first European tobacco-free generation by 2030.”
NoFumadores calls on EC to propose legislation to “save new generations from falling into tobacco addiction”, to act against related environmental dangers and against smoking. More specifically, they ask EC to propose legal acts to end the sale of tobacco and nicotine products to citizens born in 2010 onwards. The initiative also calls on specific measures to achieve tobacco-free and cigarette butt-free beaches and riverbanks, create a European network of tobacco and cigarette butt-free national parks, to extend outdoor vapor-free spaces, and to eliminate tobacco advertising and its presence in audiovisual productions and social media.
As this ECI fulfils the formal conditions, EC considers that it is legally admissible, but has not analyzed the substance of the proposal at this stage.
The decision to register is of a legal nature and it does not prejudge the final legal and political conclusions of EC on this initiative and the action it will intend to take, if any, in case the initiative obtains the necessary support. The content of the initiative only expresses the views of the group of organizers, and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of EC.
Now NoFumadores has six months to collect the required number of signatures. If an ECI receives one million statements of support within a year, from at least seven different member states, EC will have to react. It could decide to take the request forward or not, and will be required to explain its reasoning.