While the UK grapples with the problems caused by its attempted introduction of controls over tobacco advertising by way of secondary legislation under the aegis of an EU Directive which has now been sawn off at the knees by a European Court of Justice judgment, the Irish Government is now flexing its muscles and enforcing its own tobacco advertising ban
Topic: Tobacco
Who: Government of the Irish Republic
When: Autumn 2000
Where: Ireland
What happened:
While the UK grapples with the problems caused by its attempted introduction of controls over tobacco advertising by way of secondary legislation under the aegis of an EU Directive which has now been sawn off at the knees by a European Court of Justice judgment, the Irish Government is now flexing its muscles and enforcing its own tobacco advertising ban. The Irish ban has survived the ECJ verdict because it was introduced by way of primary legislation and was not based upon the EU Directive. Under the Irish controls, all newspapers and magazines on sale in Ireland are barred from carrying any tobacco advertising. The restrictions apply to all publications with a circulation of more than 1,000 copies. Publishers of periodicals such as "Time" and "Newsweek" have responded to the regulations by printing European editions which exclude tobacco advertising. Monthlies like Playboy, which are printed in the US by way of one print run per month of 5 million copies, however, face a problem, particularly as they rely very heavily on tobacco advertising. Essentially they must decide whether to organise a special Irish print run to meet current demand, which in the case of Playboy is at around 10,000 (hardly a commercial proposition one would imagine) or restrict circulation in the Emerald Isle to just 1,000.
Why this matters:
One of the fundamental reasons for the ECJ decision that the EU Tobacco Advertising Directive was ultra vires and did not have the force of law was that it was a public health measure masquerading as a single market measure. The introduction of the Irish law brings into sharp focus the fact that bans of this kind are fundamentally antipathetic to the single market concept. The next flashpoint is likely to be in relation to international sports broadcasts in Ireland such as Formula One. The Irish Health Minister wants the RTE, Ireland's BBC, to block out all tobacco advertising in its broadcasts of F1 races, as these are not excluded from the Irish law's ambit.
Source: UK Press Gazette
