EU decides dampers for smokers: playgrounds and outdoor pools smoke -free!

EU decides dampers for smokers: playgrounds and outdoor pools smoke -free!

A dramatic ban on smoking takes shape: The majority of the health ministers of the EU member states have spoken out for "smoke-free environments". At a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, a proposal to regulate smoking in areas such as playgrounds, outdoor pools and bus stops was supported. These measures aim to ensure the protection of children from tobacco smoke. The Austrian Minister of Health Johannes Rauch (Greens) announced that Austria would like to implement a strict ban on smoking at children's playgrounds, a project, but has been experienced in internal party resistors and has so far become destroyed. According to Today.

The EU Commission is pursuing ambitious plans to have long overdue smoking in public areas. According to the information from tagesschau.de , smoking in parks, at Christmas markets and at stops in the coming years should be reduced drastically. EU commissioner Helena Dalli explains that one wants to create a tobacco-free generation in Europe, since a quarter of Europeans are currently smoking and 700,000 people in the EU die from smoking. However, these measures are criticized by some, including the AfD European Corpa Parliamentarian Christine Anderson, as an exaggerated regulation, which leads to a incapacity for citizens. The Commission and Parliament continue to emphasize the need to differentiate between conventional tobacco and new products such as e-cigarettes in order to find adapted solutions that could offer real benefits.

While a binding implementation of the new recommendations is still a long time coming, the ball lies with the individual EU countries to make decisions. The hopes of a comprehensive ban on smoking seem to be affected by the political debates within and between the member countries. Minister of Health Rauch warned that the resistance to necessary regulations is not acceptable and the time pressure on the adoption of such measures is only clearer. In an charged political climate, the question remains whether the EU recommendations are accepted as binding norms or whether there are further delays and popularity struggles.