EU Health Commissioner John Dalli said today that there was a need to revise EU legislation on tobacco products.
"Tobacco remains the single most preventable cause of premature death and disease in the European Union," the commissioner told a conference hosted by the Belgian Foundation against Cancer.
"13 million Europeans suffer from diseases related to tobacco smoking. This is more than the entire population of Hungary or the Netherlands, or Portugal.
"Just think how many deaths, how much suffering, and also how much money in treatment we could save, if people did not smoke."
He noted that the great majority of smokers start smoking when they are teenagers. In some Member States, a tird of 15 year old teenagers smokes.
His main concern, Mr Dalli said, was smoking by children and the factors which led them to start smoking.
"We know that young people start smoking because they are led to think it’s cool. They go on...
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