Optimism as crucial tobacco debate rolls on

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The message from Geneva may be mixed, but campaigners say the industry must remain positive if it is to succeed in overturning the World Health Organisation's (WHO) move to ban duty-free tobacco sales

Speaking at a TFWA World Exhibition tobacco workshop, International Travel Retail Confederation director-general Keith Spinks and International Association of Airport Duty Free Stores' Washington lobbyist Jon Kent reported that delegates to the fifth round of WHO negotiations are no closer to reaching a consensus on the crucial issue. Another negotiating session will take place from February 17 - 28 before the final treaty is ratified in May. "This is both good and bad news as there is still much work to be done," said Kent. Countries still coming out in favour of a duty-free tobacco ban are mainly in Africa, the Caribbean, India and parts of southeast Asia.

The most disheartening news to emerge from the talks is that the European Commision called for a reinstatement of the original text, which called for an outright ban rather than the current draft of "progressively restricting, with a view to prohibiting". However, Spinks said that the Commission had no authority to issue that statement as European delegates were clearly torn on the issue in last month's regional discussions.

"We will be contacting the Commission to find out where this statement came from, as the divisions within the region mean they have no mandate to speak on its behalf," said Spinks. Speaking to TRW after the conference, Spinks said that it was likely that there would be some mention of the duty-free clause in the final text, and that the campaigners' job was now to prevent prohibition from being mentioned.

The plan to ban self-service tobacco sales remained high on the WHO agenda, and BAA's Sarah Branqinho pointed out that if the proposal was passed, saving duty-free tobacco sales would make very little difference.

But Kent urged the industry to remain positive and for those companies still not involved to contact the governments in their respective countries before it is too late. "I still think we can win this," he told the audience. Attendees were urged to step up individual lobbying actions by their companies.