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The tobacco industry used a “massive” lobby to shape regulation of cigarettes and other tobacco products in Europe, according to a study.

Vast numbers of lobbyists held dozens of secret meetings with policy makers, swamped the commission with biased responses to a public consultation and even sent gifts to help persuade MEPs to drop some of the stricter parts of the regulation, such as the insistence on plain cigarette packaging.

The report states that one tobacco company alone - Philip Morris - hired 161 lobbyists (not all full time), incurring £1.25m in expenses alone, to either amend or delay a piece of legislation introduced in April 2014.

There were only five full-time health advocates in Brussels at the time.

(Image: Getty)

“It’s like David and Goliath,” lead researcher Silvy Peeters from the University of Bath says.

Other tobacco companies - including BAT, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco’ were “just as active” she says, but we have more detail on Philip Morris due to leaked documents.

The Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) was designed to replace an outdated piece of legislation drawn up in 2001, bringing in more restrictions for tobacco companies including increasing the size of graphic health warnings, a ban on flavoured cigarettes such as menthols and the regulation of e-cigarettes.

(Image: Getty)

It’s been in development since 2005, and 'Big Tobacco' has been lobbying hard since.

When the European Commission launched a public consultation into the proposed regulation it received 85,000 responses.

“That is quite unheard of for an EU consultation,” explains Peeters. “A lot of people aren't really engaged.”

When the Commission analysed the responses it found that most of them came from tobacco-industry led mobilisation campaigns in Italy and Poland.

“But only 2,000 of the 85,000 disclosed that they were from the tobacco industry,” she adds. “They hijacked this response.”

EU directives first get drafted by the commission, before moving to the European Parliament and Council.

(Image: Getty)

“Before TPD made it to parliament, Philip Morris had ALREADY spoken to a THIRD of members of European Parliament,” she adds.

To make matters worse, many of these meetings were held "in secret" when, in the interests of transparency, there should have been minutes taken and published.

Peeters and her team have collected all the data relating to amendments different parts of the Commission made to the regulation and found that there was a correlation between repeated meetings with tobacco companies and amendments to regulation in favour of those companies.

"Overall the campaign attempted to shift the debate away from health towards alleged negative economic impacts of the proposal and to isolate or weaken those with an interest in health," the authors of the study say.

Despite this, Peeters says that the directive is still stronger than the 2001 legislation.

“Did anything illegal happen? I don’t know. But it’s certainly in the grey area - in the shadows of policy making a lot of things happened,” Peeters says.

Philip Morris told Mirror Online that the European Commission invited all sorts of organisations to share their views through the consultation process.

"We believe that dialogue with decision makers is necessary for a well-considered and informed decision making process, and like every group, we made our positions known. We voluntarily disclose our activities in the EU Transparency Register, according to the EU’s methodology."

"It’s unfortunate that the tired suggestion that Philip Morris employs 161 lobbyists – which has been previously corrected over the past two years – continues to be a focus for anti-tobacco groups.

Much of the EU Tobacco Products Directive is disappointing, which is why we are challenging it before the Court of Justice of the EU following a referral by the High Court of England and Wales.”