The Council of Ministers approved on Tuesday the preliminary draft of the new antitabaco law that equals the restrictions of the electronic cigarette to those of fuel tobacco and prohibits smoking and vaping in terraces, in addition to swimming pools, marques and other outdoor spaces. With this decision, the Executive opens the formal processing of a reform of Law 28/2005 that will begin public hearing and, after new reports, will reach the Courts as a bill. The head of the Ministry of Health, Mónica García, defended that it is an “ambitious” and “evidence” norm, although other studies demonstrate otherwise.
Hospitality of Spain has reacted with a statement in which it qualifies as “disproportionate” the prohibition in terraces and asks the government to “reconsider” the measure. The organization argues that its effectiveness would be “very limited” and that it can transfer the meetings to homes (with worse ventilation) or generate accumulations of smokers in the vicinity of the premises, in addition to loading waiters and in charge with surveillance functions that “do not correspond to them.”
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The employer also explains the tourist and image of country, as Spain would become “an exception” in Europe, where France has expressly excluded the terraces of its new general outdoor veto, while Sweden has maintained since 2019 a total prohibition in areas of external restoration and other spaces. “It is essential to guarantee coexistence and avoid the imposition of additional loads to professionals in the sector,” says its president, José Luis Álvarez Almeida.
But the thing does not end here, because according to the affiliation data of the Ministry of Labor they show that during the month of August the 2 million workers affiliated with Social Security were reached for the second consecutive month, which represents about 37,000 affiliates more than in the same month of the previous year (+1.9%). This good fact could be affected by the new tobacco or in other words, less jobs.
As democopic support, the entity contributes a 40DB surveyin which 69.3% of the consulted would prefer awareness campaigns against the prohibition; More than 56% do not see the veto on terraces urgent and 85.2% believe that they would continue to smoking nearby. 62.6% points to a possible deterioration of the tourist image.
The European framework offers different readings. France has extended its smokeless space policyparks and stops since July 1, but not including terraces or vapeo to that extent; Sweden, on the contrary, prohibits smoking and vaping in outdoor restoration areas since 2019 as part of its strategy to a smoke -free country.
In parallel to the law, Health processes a Royal Decree on flavors in vape drivers and nicotine bags that remained in “Standstill” in the Tris system after six reasoned opinions (Romania, Hungary, Czech, Italy, Sweden and Greece). The CNMC endorses to strengthen prevention, but claims more empirical evidence and proportionality before imposing general restrictions.
The sanitary debate is no longer whether smoking is harmful, which is, but what combination of tools accelerates the fall of smoking or saying of others, what is the best to quit smoking. The NHS remembers that vapeo implies “a fraction” of the risk of smoking and can help leave tobacco in adults, with clear safeguards for minors and non -smokers.
Finally, Álvarez Almeida says that “the terraces are a key space for the social and economic life of the country, and any decision must seriously assess its real impact in terms of employment, business activity, tourist competitiveness and customer experience.”