Before the Police arrived the intruders had time to search the office and steal several laptops, petty cash, and bank cards. 

These are the facts:
  • The office building has 8 floors
  • The only offices broken into were ERS/SFP (5th floor), EPHA (2nd floor), and a law firm (8th floor)
  • In the ERS/SFP office, there were four laptops stolen, three of which belonged to people working on tobacco control
     
We have filed police reports and an investigation is under way.
 
Notes to editors
 
176 countries worldwide and the European Union are legally bound by the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Article 5.3 of the FCTC states:
“In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.” (http://www.who.int/fctc/protocol/guidelines/adopted/article_5_3/en/index.html)
 
In November 2008, FCTC member states have adopted the following principle:
“There is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests.” (http://www.who.int/fctc/guidelines/article_5_3.pdf)
 
On 16 and 17 October, both SFP and EPHA came out against the unprecedented interference by the tobacco industry in the ongoing review of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). This interference arose from a tobacco company calling for the TPD to be stopped on the grounds that allegations have been made against Health Commissioner John Dalli, which resulted in his resignation in order to clear his name. Numerous media outlets have started asking questions about the circumstances leading up to Commissioner Dalli’s resignation; and the future and contents of the Tobacco Products Directive.
http://www.smokefreepartnership.eu/news/resignation-health-commissioner-dalli
http://www.smokefreepartnership.eu/news/epha-reacts-dalli-resignation
 
We reiterate our demand to the European Commission to unfreeze the proposal for the review of the Tobacco products Directive in the strong form that was reported in the media interview with John Dalli on 17 October: http://www.neurope.eu/article/exclusive-john-dalli-interview-olaf-resignation-tobacco-directive-video.
 
ERS statement: http://www.ersnet.org/news/item/4586-european-respiratory-society-statement-18th-october-2012.html
EPHA statement: http://epha.org/a/5388
 
A statement from ERS will follow and will be linked on our website.
 
Press contact: Florence Berteletti Kemp, SFP Director +32.2.238.53.63, florence.berteletti@ersnet.org  
 

 

The Smoke Free Partnership is...

a partnership between the European Respiratory Society, Cancer Research UK, the European Heart Network and Action on Smoking and Health UK. We aim to promote tobacco control advocacy and policy research at EU and national levels in collaboration with other EU health organisations and EU tobacco control networks.