EU public consultation on smoking directive

The European Commission, Health and Consumers Directorate-General, has issued a report on the public consultation on the possible revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (2001/37/EC).

From the report we learn that:

"The public consultation generated over 85 000 contributions, which illustrates a great interest in EU tobacco control policy. Citizen contributions accounted for 96% of the survey response. Almost 2/3 of the contributions were from just two Member States: Italy and Poland. It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the outcome of the public consultation procedure."

Later we are then told:

"The public consultation drew a wide response from citizens: 82 117 responses in total. While it is encouraging to see a great number of responses, it should also be noted that this volume appears to be a result, to a large extent, of several citizen mobilisation campaigns that took place in some Member States."

From that last statement it would appear that the EU don't appear to like the citizen responses that have been received and I also believe we can all guess, when the recommendations are published, that which will follow. Needless to say, as far as I can see, there does not appear any acknowledgement of a most important democratic principle; namely that what the people want is all that matters.

But hey, that last point is not what the EU was invented for - is it................