EU: The European Commission yesterday brought in a ban on smoking in its office buildings, on the first working day of the enlarged European Union.
Staff arriving at the Commission to see signs of the changes brought by enlargement, discovered a rash of no-smoking signs and an anti-smoking message on the staff intranet.
Although Ireland's European Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, has been zealously campaigning against smoking for the last five years, the Commission has until now taken a softly-softly approach in phasing out smoking from its own offices.
Around a fifth of the Commission's 20,000 workforce are thought to be smokers.
The European Commissioner for personnel and reform, Mr Neil Kinnock, argued that it would be better if the majority of new staff from the new EU countries joined an institution where smoking is already banned. He said unless a ban was introduced, the Commission might find itself open to legal action for not protecting the health of its employees. He was strongly supported by Mr Byrne.
The ban's initial success became clear yesterday when dozens of Commission officials stood outside their offices to smoke in the spring sunshine.
Elsewhere in Brussels, smoking is widespread and anti-smoking signs are customarily ignored, but the Commission wants to see its ban enforced. The ban will apply even to those commissioners who smoke, among them Mr Kinnock and the trade commissioner, Mr Pascal Lamy.
The commission's workforce, who come from a variety of cultural backgrounds, with correspondingly mixed views on smoking, have given mixed reactions in the run-up to the ban, carrying on a lively discussion in the staff newspaper.
They were offered support from the Commission's medical services, including psychological counselling.
A Commission spokesman said that "tens rather than hundreds" had availed of the offer.