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The impact of the treaty basis on health policy legislation in the European Union: A case study on the tobacco advertising directive

BACKGROUND: The Europe Against Cancer programme was initiated in the late 1980s, recognising, among other risk factors, the problematic relationship between tobacco use and cancer. In an attempt to reduce the number of smokers in the European Community, the European Commission proposed a ban on toba...

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Autores principales: Boessen, Sandra, Maarse, Hans
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2358888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18397520
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-8-77
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author Boessen, Sandra
Maarse, Hans
author_facet Boessen, Sandra
Maarse, Hans
author_sort Boessen, Sandra
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The Europe Against Cancer programme was initiated in the late 1980s, recognising, among other risk factors, the problematic relationship between tobacco use and cancer. In an attempt to reduce the number of smokers in the European Community, the European Commission proposed a ban on tobacco advertising. The question of why it took over ten years of negotiating before the EU adopted a policy measure that could in fact improve the health situation in the Community, can only be answered by focusing on politics. METHODS: We used an actor-centred institutionalist approach, focusing on the strategic behaviour of the major actors involved. We concentrated our analysis on the legal basis as an important institution and evaluated how the absence of a proper legal basis for public health measures in the Treaties influenced policy-making, framing the discussion in market-making versus market-correcting policy interventions. For our analysis, we used primary and secondary sources, including policy documents, communications and press releases. We also conducted 9 semi-structured interviews. RESULTS: The ban on tobacco advertising was, in essence, a public health measure. The Commission used its agenda-setting power and framed the market-correcting proposal in market-making terms. The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers then used the discussion on the legal basis as a vehicle for real political controversies. After adoption of the ban on tobacco advertising, Germany appealed to the European Court of Justice, which annulled the ban but also offered suggestions for a possible solution with article 100a as the legal basis. CONCLUSION: The whole market-making versus market-correcting discussion is related to a broader question, namely how far European health regulation can go in respect to the member states. In fact, the policy-making process of a tobacco advertising ban, as described in this paper, is related to the 'constitutional' foundation of health policy legislation in the Community. The absence of a clear-cut legal basis for health policies does not imply that the EU's impact on health is negligible. In the case of tobacco-control measures, the creative use of other Treaty bases has resulted in significant European action in the field of public health.
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spelling pubmed-23588882008-04-29 The impact of the treaty basis on health policy legislation in the European Union: A case study on the tobacco advertising directive Boessen, Sandra Maarse, Hans BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: The Europe Against Cancer programme was initiated in the late 1980s, recognising, among other risk factors, the problematic relationship between tobacco use and cancer. In an attempt to reduce the number of smokers in the European Community, the European Commission proposed a ban on tobacco advertising. The question of why it took over ten years of negotiating before the EU adopted a policy measure that could in fact improve the health situation in the Community, can only be answered by focusing on politics. METHODS: We used an actor-centred institutionalist approach, focusing on the strategic behaviour of the major actors involved. We concentrated our analysis on the legal basis as an important institution and evaluated how the absence of a proper legal basis for public health measures in the Treaties influenced policy-making, framing the discussion in market-making versus market-correcting policy interventions. For our analysis, we used primary and secondary sources, including policy documents, communications and press releases. We also conducted 9 semi-structured interviews. RESULTS: The ban on tobacco advertising was, in essence, a public health measure. The Commission used its agenda-setting power and framed the market-correcting proposal in market-making terms. The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers then used the discussion on the legal basis as a vehicle for real political controversies. After adoption of the ban on tobacco advertising, Germany appealed to the European Court of Justice, which annulled the ban but also offered suggestions for a possible solution with article 100a as the legal basis. CONCLUSION: The whole market-making versus market-correcting discussion is related to a broader question, namely how far European health regulation can go in respect to the member states. In fact, the policy-making process of a tobacco advertising ban, as described in this paper, is related to the 'constitutional' foundation of health policy legislation in the Community. The absence of a clear-cut legal basis for health policies does not imply that the EU's impact on health is negligible. In the case of tobacco-control measures, the creative use of other Treaty bases has resulted in significant European action in the field of public health. BioMed Central 2008-04-08 /pmc/articles/PMC2358888/ /pubmed/18397520 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-8-77 Text en Copyright © 2008 Boessen and Maarse; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Boessen, Sandra
Maarse, Hans
The impact of the treaty basis on health policy legislation in the European Union: A case study on the tobacco advertising directive
title The impact of the treaty basis on health policy legislation in the European Union: A case study on the tobacco advertising directive
title_full The impact of the treaty basis on health policy legislation in the European Union: A case study on the tobacco advertising directive
title_fullStr The impact of the treaty basis on health policy legislation in the European Union: A case study on the tobacco advertising directive
title_full_unstemmed The impact of the treaty basis on health policy legislation in the European Union: A case study on the tobacco advertising directive
title_short The impact of the treaty basis on health policy legislation in the European Union: A case study on the tobacco advertising directive
title_sort impact of the treaty basis on health policy legislation in the european union: a case study on the tobacco advertising directive
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2358888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18397520
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-8-77
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