Parliamentary group: Union clears the way for tobacco advertising ban

The members of the CDU and CSU have this Tuesday cleared a topic that had long split the faction. It was a fight of health and consumer protection politicians against the business wing. Some wanted to implement the tobacco advertising ban, so that cigarette advertising is no longer allowed to hang at bus stops, train stations and streets, where it is seen by children and adolescents. The others wanted to prevent the Union from adopting another prohibition and making legal business more difficult.

But in the group meeting on Tuesday, the proponents of the advertising ban were clearly in the majority. According to data from participant circles there were 46 against, which corresponded to about a fifth of the present deputies.

Former Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt had reportedly urged his group colleagues: "This is about life and death. Go to the Cancer Center in Heidelberg and inform you about lung cancer." Schmidt had already submitted a very similar bill three years ago. But the then group leader Volker Kauder blocked him.

Brinkhaus breaks with Kauders line

However, Kauders successor Ralph Brinkhaus did not want to accept that Germany was losing its international obligations. All other EU countries have long since implemented the framework agreement of the World Health Organization. Only Germany lags behind. Before the vote, Brinkhaus said: "I stand by this compromise, I am promoting this compromise."

At the meeting, CSU Country Group Chief Alexander Dobrindt even argued that the advertising ban comes into force even earlier: "I could imagine everything even faster and harder," Dobrindt is quoted from the faction meeting.

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Norbert Schmidt / imago stock Discussion about tobacco advertising in the haze of the lobby

According to participants, critical voices came from, among others, Joachim Pfeiffer from the Working Group on Business, who spoke out against another ban. Health Minister Jens Spahn responded by saying that the Bundestag recently decided to ban advertising for beauty surgeries among adolescents. On the other hand, there were no objections. It certainly has something to do with lobbying and the size of the market, says Spahn.

And that is the point in the cornerstone paper of the Union faction:

• Cinema advertising for tobacco and cigarettes should run from 1.1.2021 only before films that are released from 18 years. This also applies to e-cigarettes.
• Billboard advertising should be banned gradually - with the exception of the specialized trade, which may advertise his business.
• For classic cigarettes and tobacco may no longer be advertised from 1.1.2022 on posters. For tobacco heaters the ban should apply from 1.1.2023 and for e-cigarettes from 1.1.2024.

Tobacco advertising helps young people to quit smoking, according to the EU paper. So had the CSU politician Florian Hahn argued on Monday in the group executive committee: young people, who took early to the cigarette, would come back later only with difficulty. In addition, Hahn reported, according to participants of the meeting, the painful death of his father, a former smoker who had died of lung cancer. The deputy Olav Gutting, however, declared the tobacco advertising ban to the litmus test for whether regulatory policy in the Union even play a role.

The SPD faction has already expressed its agreement. The Greens and the Left Party in the Bundestag support the tobacco advertising ban, FDP and AfD reject a ban. Niema Movassat, drug policy spokesman for the Left Party, told the SPIEGEL: "The majority in plenary is safe." The Left welcomes every step towards tobacco advertising ban. If the final bill does not go far enough, it will ask for amendments.

That's how you think it is in the Green Party. MEP Kirsten Kappert-Gonther told the SPIEGEL: "We welcome the fact that the Union can finally move towards a tobacco advertising ban." This step was overdue.