The European Union Wednesday passed a tobacco-control law that will ban flavored cigarettes, require bigger warning labels on packets and, for the first time, regulate electronic cigarettes on a European level.
The bloc's 28 countries have two years to write the new regulations into national law, at which point they will come into effect.
About 28% of Europeans smoke and every year the habit kills some 700,000 of them, according to the European Commission, the EU's executive arm. The main objective of the new law is to stop young people from taking up smoking, since even under the commission's own estimate it will get very few existing smokers to quit.
Under the new law, warning labels have to cover at least 65% of a cigarette pack's surface. Individual governments are allowed to go even further, for instance by preventing cigarette makers from displaying branding. The U.K. and Ireland have said they want to adopt such "plain-packaging" laws.
Special additives that make cigarettes more addictive or easier to smoke, such as sweet flavorings, will also be banned. There is an exception for menthol cigarettes, which will remain legal until 2020.
Comment: The BDS movement academic boycott seems to be gaining some ground.
There is still hope for Palestine, and for a better world.