No butts -- More and more European smokers told to stub it out

Smokers are finding themselves increasingly unwelcome in public areas throughout Europe as health fears over passive smoking require them to stub it out in more and more bars, restaurants and train stations.

Ireland, where smoke-filled pubs were long the centre of social life, led the way with a total ban of smoking in public places imposed on March 29, 2004.

Since then Norway (not in the EU), Italy, Malta, Sweden and Scotland have followed suit with the rest of Britain along with Lithuania set to follow suit next year.

To the great surprise of many people, compliance with the public smoking ban in Ireland was running at 94 percent a year after it was introduced. Huddles of hard-core smokers quickly became a common sight puffing away around giant ashtrays placed outside bars.

Ireland's main opposition justice spokesman John Deasy, one the stubborn six percent, was fired by his party leader after he smoked in the members bar of the Irish parliament.

In Rome, Italians wanting to smoke in public since the ban was introduced there in January 2005 wander out on to terraces and balconies in summer and winter alike.

On Tuesday a Frnch parliamentary commission is due to publish its recommendations on the issue, with a government decision expected next week.

Paris has announced a "delay" in any legislation to allow bars, bistros and discos to prepare and adapt so that empty ashtrays doesn't mean empty tills.

Cigarette smoke in restaurants, bars and even hospitals makes France's public spaces among the unhealthiest in the world, according to new research released on Wednesday.

In 42 percent of French public spaces, the air quality was ranked as "dangerous" due to high smoke concentrations, said the study conducted by the Lyon-based International Centre for Cancer Research and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Only five countries -- Syria, Romania, Lebanon, Belgium and Singapore -- performed worse, according to the 24-nation study, which looked at bars, restaurants and nightclubs, as well as train stations, airports and hospitals.

However in most other EU nations public smoking bans are non-existent or full of holes that leave anti-tobacco campaigners fuming.

Governments throughout the bloc are still having the coffers versus coffins debate, weighing up the undeniable health benefits against the loss of tax revenues from cigarettes and cigars.

Smokers in Lithuania will be dealt a double blow from the start of next year, when they will be banned from smoking in public and have to pay more for their addiction as excise tax on tobacco is hiked, a press report said Friday.

New European Union member Lithuania must increase excise tax on tobacco, as part of obligations to the bloc, which it joined in 2004. By 2010, excise tax has to make up 57 percent of the price of the most popular brand of smokes in Lithuania, according to EU rules.

In Austria where 37 percent of adults smoke -- one of the highest rates in the EU where the average is 27 percent -- there is no ban at all on smoking in bars and restaurants.

In Germany any ban is the responsibility of the restaurateurs, with MPs there last week again deciding not to introduce any binding rules.

In Spain, where an anti-smoking ban has been in place since January, the exceptions to the rules have allowed most bars and restaurants to filter out any smoking ban.

A tobacco law which came into effect in Luxembourg this month allows the tiny Grand Duchy's nightclubs to keep smoking while restaurants can have air-filtered smokers' rooms.

Similarly, when Belgium introduces its new law in January, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to keep smoking rooms, although no food or drink will be served in them.

Such "fumoirs" are set to multiply with the idea also catching alight in France. In Finland special rooms hermetically sealed from the non-smoking outside world are being planned for after a tough new law is introduced in June 2007.

Such exceptions to the no-smoking rule are not just favoured by restaurant owners who can see their profits going up in smoke. Their customers are also piping up.

According to a European poll taken in May, while most Europeans (63 percent) are strongly in favour of a ban on smoking in offices and other enclosed public places, the majority dips to 56 percent when the question concerns restaurants alone.

When the smoking-ban question was limited to bars and cafes just 40 percent of respondents said they were strongly in favour of a total ban.

Faced with such figures the Czech republic has rolled up some of the anti-smoking measures it introduced last year.

Elsewhere smoking bans are simply ignored, including Greece, which heads the league table of tobacco smokers (40 percent) and Hungary, where parliamentary deputies still make decisions in smoke-filled rooms.

As yet there is no overriding European legislation to clear the air. Community rules only cover maximum nicotine and tar levels as well as ruling on the size of the health warnings on packets.

But Brussels doesn't rule out further legislation.

"There is a debate underway on how to tackle passive smoking and the noxious effects of smoking in public places," according to EU health spokesman Philip Tod.

That debate looks set to smoulder on