Advies over Richtlijn betreffende de productie, presentatie en verkoop van tabak
Committee on Legal Affairs 2009-2014, 13.3.2013 (Notice tot Members 28/2013)
Het betreft het met redenen omkleed advies van de 'Italian Chamber of Deputies' over het voorstel voor een Richtlijn van het Europees Parlement en de Raad betreffende de harmonisatie van de wettelijke en bestuursrechtelijke bepalingen van de lidstaten met betrekking tot de productie, presentatie en de verkoop van tabak en aanverwante producten.
The subject of the 'Notice tot Members' is the reasoned opinion by the Italian Chamber of Deputies on the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco and related products. (...)Under Article 6 of the Protocol (No 2) on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, any national parliament may, within eight weeks from the date of transmission of a draft legislative act, send the Presidents of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission a reasoned opinion stating why it considers that the draft in question does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity.
Committee XIV (European Union policies) noting, however, that the provisions laid down in the proposal for a directive involve certain issues that are critical with regard to compliance with the principle of subsidiarity, whereas, in particular:
a) before the national parliaments undertake the scrutiny of subsidiarity referred to in Protocol No 2 to the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, it is necessary to assess whether the legal basis of draft legislative acts of the European Union is correct; accordingly, national parliaments are able to adopt reasoned opinions under Article 6 of that Protocol should they find that an incorrect or inappropriate legal basis has been used in respect of the substance and purpose of a draft EU legislative act; (...)
d) the Court, in particular, pointed out that Article 114, interpreted in conjunction with Article 168 TFEU, allows the adoption of measures affecting human health provided that the legislative act is aimed primarily and effectively at removing obstacles to the free movement of goods or removing appreciable distortions of competition. Recourse to Article 114 would not, however, be justified if the act to be adopted had health protection as its primary and immediate objective and only as an 'incidental' effect that of harmonising market conditions within the Community;
e) the proposal for a directive under consideration does not appear fully to meet the conditions laid down by the Court for recourse to Article 114 because many of its provisions are not liable to remove obstacles to the free movement of tobacco products or distortions of competition; (...)
g) the Commission has expressly justified its measures relating to the standardisation of packaging and the ban on selling entire categories of products that are currently legal (...) by its desire to reduce the attractiveness of tobacco products and the concern that a certain type of product or package may lead consumers to believe it is less harmful.(...)
