BERLIN — The European Parliament adopted stringent laws Tuesday that will force cigarette makers to reduce their products' tar and nicotine levels and encourage graphic packaging to shock smokers into quitting.
The legislation also bans the use of what European Union officials contend are misleading terms, such as "mild" and "light," even if those words are part of a brand's registered trademark. That will make it illegal within the EU to sell brands such as Philip Morris' "Marlboro Lights" and the "Mild Seven" cigarettes produced by JT International of Japan.
The legislation authors propose that larger warning labels carry such straight talk as "Smoking kills," "Protect children: Don't make them breathe your smoke" and "Smoking can lead to long and painful death."
The legislation also encourages national health ministries to require cigarette manufacturers to include prominently on the packaging pictures of discolored teeth, diseased lungs and limbs amputated from smokers whose habit starved their extremities of oxygen.
Cigarette makers have vowed to contest the laws, claiming they violate their property rights and threaten shareholder interests.
EU administrators in Brussels have long sought a bloc-wide ban on cigarette advertising, and the measures approved by the Parliament are seen as a mandate for further EU restrictions on smoking and its promotion within the 15 member states. About 33% of the region's adult population smokes cigarette, compared with 22.7% of American adults.
Smoking remains pandemic in Europe, despite highly educated and literate populations that are as aware as U.S. citizens are of the health damage inflicted on smokers and those around them. Only last year, smoking was forbidden in public offices and facilities such as airports in Germany and Finland. There is still little enforcement of smoking bans.
Nonsmoking areas in European restaurants remain rare, as do affordable hotel rooms solely for nonsmokers.
"I want to reduce the number of smokers in Europe from the current one-third of the population to one-fifth," David Byrne, the EU commissioner for health and consumer protection, told the lawmakers.
About 500,000 EU citizens die each year of smoking-related illnesses. "That's one person every minute," Byrne said.
