Croatia is running late in implementing the Directive (2014/40/EU), which lays down rules governing the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco and related products, and is facing sanctions. A few other member-states have also failed to align their national laws with the directive: Cyprus, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
They failed to honour a a deadline that expired on 20 May this year regarding the requirement that health warnings should be displayed on packages of tobacco and related products. Combined (picture and text) health warnings must cover 65% of the front and back of cigarette and roll-your-own tobacco packages.
These countries were warned on 8 December of their obligation and were given a two-month period to notify the European Commission of the measures taken.
The purpose of the directive is to reduce the number of smokers and to lessen the number of smoking-related deaths. Currently, smoking is considered the cause of 700,000 deaths annually throughout the EU.
In Croatia, the ministry registers 9,000 smoking-related deaths annually.
While slightly over three-quarters (76.0%) of those aged 15 or over living in the European Union (EU) were nonsmokers in 2014, 19.2% smoked any kind of tobacco products on a daily basis and a further 4.7% occasionally, the EU statistical office Eurostat said last week, citing information from the European Health Interview Survey.
The survey showed that nearly 1 in every 4 persons (24.0%) aged 15 or over in the EU was a current smoker in 2014. The proportion of smokers among men was higher than that among women (28.7% against 19.5%), and slightly more than a fifth of the EU population aged 15 or over was exposed, on a daily basis, to tobacco smoke indoors.
Tobacco consumption is one of the largest avoidable health risks in the EU: many forms of cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are linked to tobacco use, Eurostat said.
Among the EU member states for which data are available, the lowest shares of current smokers in 2014 among the population aged 15 or over were recorded in Sweden (16.7%) and the United Kingdom (17.2%), ahead of Finland (19.3%), Portugal (20.0%), Luxembourg (20.4%), Denmark (20.9%) and Germany (21.7%). At the opposite end of the scale, about 1 in 3 persons aged 15 or over was a smoker in Bulgaria (34.7%) and Greece (32.6%), followed by Austria (30.0%), Slovakia (29.6%) and Latvia (29.5%).
In Croatia, 28.7% of people were smokers in 2014; 25% were daily smokers and 3.7% were occasional smokers. The proportion of smokers among men was 32.7% as against 25% among women.