EU: Tobacco giant spent €1.5mn to wine and dine MEPs

(EUObserver) - Tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) is said to have spent €1.5 million on lunches and dinners in an effort to woo MEPs into weakening the revised EU legislation on tobacco products up for a vote at the next Strasbourg plenary.

The figure, unveiled on Thursday (3 October) by the co-leader of the Green group, German MEP Rebecca Harms, involved meetings in the past year with around a third of the entire European Parliament.

“The Philip Morris experience I would say for this parliament is a very dark experience,” she said.

PMI declined to comment on the €1.5 million figure, but told this website the broader allegations of heavy lobbying are false. In a press statement, PMI estimated costs between €1 million to €1.25 million for representing PMI’s interests to EU institutions in 2012.

Meanwhile, the vote on the directive, initially scheduled for early September, is said to have been delayed following intense lobbying by the company in an effort to push legislative deliberations into the upcoming and more tobacco-friendly Greek EU presidency.

PMI had hired around 160 lobbyists in Brussels, tasked to "target" EU lawmakers in a scheme that colour-coded pro and anti-tobacco MEPs.

Harms, along with the Swedish Green MEP Carl Schlyter who co-chairs the public health committee, told reporters in Brussels that amendments tabled by mostly centre-right, conservative, and some liberal MEPs align with a PMI wish-list of five main legislative changes.