Frédérique Ries assesses the successes and drawbacks of the new anti-smoking laws and Pervenche Berès flags necessary future improvements to working conditions at sea.

7 Days: Weighing up new tobacco laws - bolstering seafarer rights

Welcome to the Parliament in Strasbourg  for this edition of 7 Days in Europe.

The figures are damning. Tobacco kills  nearly 700,000 people in Europe each year.

Is tobacco's time up?  Well, the answer is no, or at least not yet.

Step by step the EU is trying to find  a solution, but the path is full of pitfalls.

This week, though, the fight against  tobacco addiction took on a new dimension.

Even though for some people the vote by  MEPs has left a bitter or even acrid taste,

my guest can still find something  to be positive about.

I'm talking about the electronic cigarette.  Frédérique Ries, hello.

You're a member of the Liberals  and Democrats Group in the Parliament.

You are Belgian  and you have worked a lot recently

on an amendment concerning  the e-cigarette. We'll come back to that.

Not only that. I was rapporteur for my group  on the whole directive.

Before we start, as ever we have  one minute. It's a little game.

You have two possible answers.  It's Yes or No. Here we go.

Frédérique Ries, do you smoke?  -No. I've never smoked.

Do you vape? For novices, that's  inhaling from an e-cigarette.

I've recently learnt the term too.  No, I don't vape either.

Were you contacted by tobacco industry  lobbyists when working on the directive?

I was contacted indirectly. We received  their information and literature,

but I only met them under the guidelines  laid down by the WHO, in public...

That's yes.  -I was contacted, of course.

The tobacco lobby drew up a list of MEPs.  Are you on it?

The press told me I was on it  with red flashing lights for all the criteria.

That was the next question,  whether your light was red.

Do you think cigarette manufacturers  have lost a battle this week?

Have they lost the war?  -They haven't lost everything.

They haven't lost or won  and the compromise isn't bad.

Are you going to stand in the elections?

Anyway, we wish you good luck with that.  -Thank you.

So let's come back to this long negotiation.  It has been very complicated.

Can you tell us exactly how it was?  People have talked about the lobbying.

Even people who are not involved at all  in the EU have understood

that there were certain ins and outs,  questions of large sums of money,

and the lobbyists were present  in the European Parliament.

It's kind to let me answer  with more than yes or no.

But it's hard to compact the explanations  in this time as it was nearly a year of work.

We adopted a very  ambitious position in July

with, by that point already,  my first amendment

to release the electronic cigarette  from prison, to put it briefly,

where the Commission and the ministers  wanted to send it.

There was a delay, as you said,  which I think was clearly a victory

for the lobbyists and the industry who put  forward a series of fallacious arguments

so that gave them an extra month  to persuade people from pillar to post

and get their arguments heard.  They managed to get this delay.

They got the delay.  Could we go back to the different points...

The big issues.  -There was talk of 75%.

One of the big issues is the size...  I'll keep it short.

The ambitious proposal from  the Commission, after the first one,

is the size of these health warnings  on cigarette packets.

There were amendments of 50%.  We're coming from an average of 40%

and only 10 Member States up to now  also putting photos on.

Not even half of Member States  combine the photos and warnings.

The Commission proposed that combination  on 75% of the package.

Today we're at 65%.  -The compromise is 65%.

I proposed that compromise.  Personally, I voted for 75%. I wanted that.

But the risk if we were too ambitious  was that we'd lose everything.

At some point you have to be strategic and  political, so 65% was a good compromise.

Secondly, we wanted to ban menthol  and all flavourings,

vanilla, fruit, chocolate, candy floss.  I discovered lots of things.

So why menthol?  Because it's a niche market of 5-10%.

The producers know what they're doing  and who they're targeting.

is starting to be the leading cancer  ahead of breast cancer.

On that we half-won and we half-lost.  They've got a nice exit point - eight years.

So they're not banned, there's  a sort of phase-out period of eight years.

We lost on that, because the ministers,  the Council of Ministers,

had already taken a position  where they didn't want to ban them.

We considerably strengthened measures  against smuggling and counterfeiting.

And, last but not least,  on electronic cigarettes...

Excuse me for saying it, because it comes  from me, us, but we changed the deal.

Before we start on e-cigarettes, we'll look at  what else happened this week in the EP.

This short video has been compiled  by my colleague Caroline Grasso.

A step towards tobacco reform in Europe.

On Tuesday MEPs voted yes  to a ban on flavourings like menthol,

Slim cigarettes, particularly attractive  to women, will remain in circulation.

Anti-tobacco warnings  will have to cover 65% of packaging

Pressure from the tobacco industry or not?

Above all this vote means  that the reform will be continued

with proposals, if all goes well,  by the end of the year.

Shale gas. A solution for the future  or a ticking time bomb?

If shale gas represents an opportunity  to reduce Europe's energy dependence,

its extraction could also present a  potential risk if not properly controlled.

MEPs are proposing compulsory  environmental studies before any project

and stricter rules  to avoid conflicts of interest

between competent authorities  and contractors.

Registration for EYE 2014  opened on Tuesday.