Controlling spending

The EU Commission said yesterday that it had supported the Secretariat of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) with €5.2 million of funding between 2014 and 2017.
The Commission was replying in writing to a question raised in July by the British member of the European Parliament, Tim Aker, who asked the Commission to set out, ‘broken down both by organisation and year-by-year since 2000, just how much money has been paid by the Union under whatever budget heading to stop smoking’.
In reply, the Commission said that a detailed breakdown of Union funding on tobacco control, by year, budget heading and organization could be found in the Annex.
‘To summarise, from 2001 to 2017 a total of €158 million was spent on a number of tobacco control actions which included information campaigns, initiatives to support implementation of EU legislation, strengthening co-operation both at the EU level and at global level, knowledge development, and exchange of information for evidence-based policy making,’ the Commission said.
‘In addition, a total of €116.5 million has been invested since 2002 in a number of tobacco-related research projects through the EU Framework programs for research and innovation (FP6, FP7 and Horizon 2020). These have addressed the entire health continuum (causes, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, public health) and all types of research (exposure, policy/implementation, basic, disease specific).’
Finally, the Commission said that, from 2014 to 2017, it had supported the Secretariat of the FCTC with an amount of €5.2 million. ‘The Convention Secretariat is hosted by the World Health Organization and tasked with the implementation of the FCTC,’ it added. ‘It also works to promote the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products.’