BRUSSELS, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The European Union's health and consumer policy commissioner Tonio Borg on Thursday urged the European Parliament and health ministers from member states to support a legislative proposal on tobacco packaging aimed at discouraging youth from smoking.
"Tobacco products should not look like toys or cosmetics, or taste like vanilla or chocolate... We must strive to make tobacco products and smoking less attractive to young people," the commissioner said in Brussels, on the eve of the World No Tobacco Day.
Last December, the Commission adopted a proposal on updating the current Tobacco Products Directive with initiatives of discouraging young people from starting to smoke. It suggested that 75 percent of the front and back of cigarette packs should be covered with pictures and texts of health warning.
According to a Eurobarometer survey in 2012, 76 percent of Europeans were in favor of putting health-warning pictures on all tobacco packs and 63 percent were in favor of banning flavors.
The proposal, to be discussed among Europe's health ministers in June, needs formal endorsement from the Parliament and the Council before becoming the EU law.
Smoking kills almost 700,000 people every year in Europe. Nearly a third of EU citizens smoke, 70 percent of whom started before the age of 18 and 94 percent before the age of 25.
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