ABSTRACT
Traditionally Europe has been closely associated with smoking—culturally (French intellectuals), as a source of fiscal revenue through taxation of manufactured cigarettes (especially important in large-scale tobacco manufacturing countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands), and agriculturally through economic benefits (a mainstay of farmers in Mediterranean countries such as Italy and Greece). Yet, over the past half-century, individual countries in Europe have joined, and in some cases led, the attack against smoking. The EU began to combat smoking in the mid-1980s and has progressively moved toward greater tobacco control for its members and associated countries accepting the Single European Act (SEA) in the following instruments: taxation, removal of agricultural subsidies, product regulation, advertising restrictions, protection from secondhand smoke, anti-smuggling enforcement, capacity-building aid to anti-tobacco organizations, and education, especially through health warnings on packages and mass media campaigns.
