EU struggles to agree on PMI-agreement negotiations

The European Commission says that it needs more time than foreseen to finish an assessment of a 12-year, anti-illicit-trade agreement with Philip Morris International, according to a euobserver story.

The deal, which made PMI, the EU and its member states allies in the fight against the illicit trade in tobacco products and involved PMI paying more than €1 billion, is set to expire in July.

Member states have indicated that they want to open agreement renewal negotiations, but the Commission has said it will make a decision only after looking at the agreement’s merits and faults.

The date by which this assessment was to be published has been pushed forward at least twice. In May, the commissioner overseeing the report, Kristalina Georgieva, said the commission was “going to finalise an assessment in a couple of weeks”.

In October, Georgieva told members of the European Parliament “we still aim to finalize and publish the assessment during the present quarter”, or by the end of 2015. But as of January 7, the assessment had not been finished.