Tobacco Subsidy Petition
EU Tobacco Facts
Alyn Smith is calling for an end to subsidies for tobacco production within the European Union. He has written to the EU Commissioner for Health, John Dalli, and EU Commissioner for Budget and Financial Programming, Janusz Lewandowski, calling for their support to end the payments, but he needs your help.
Please sign the petition to add your name to the list of those who are opposed to continuing to use public money to support the production of a crop which is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Europe each year.
We, the undersigned, back Alyn's campaign to end tobacco subsidy within the EU.
- Around one third of the total EU population smokes.
- Smoking is a major risk factor for diseases of the heart and blood vessels, chronic bronchitis and emphysema, cancers of the lung and other diseases.
- Tobacco is the single largest cause of avoidable death in the European Union accounting for over half a million deaths each year and over a million deaths in Europe as a whole. It is estimated that 25% of all cancer deaths and 15% of all deaths in the Union could be attributed to smoking. These figures include 19,000 deaths from passive smoking and these people have never even smoked. Almost half of those dying are between the ages of 35 to 69 – well below average life expectancy.
- Eleven EU member states cultivate tobacco. The biggest producers in the EU are: Italy with 36% of production, Poland with 16%, Spain and Bulgaria with 12% each.
- Tobacco production is not feasible without subsidies: there needs to be a minimum price of 3.50 to 4.50 EUR per kg of raw material. However, the price in 2006 was 80 cents.
- The old support system for tobacco, before its reform in 2004, was hugely wasteful: in 2000, 953 million EUR in subsidies was paid to produce a crop with a value of 269 million EUR.
- Presently the EU is still subsiding tobacco cultivation to the tune of 300 million EUR.