The kick-off meeting of the Joint Action on Tobacco Control (JATC) takes place today and tomorrow (12-13 December) in Athens, Greece, in the presence of President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr Prokopios Pavlopoulos and Greek Minister of Health, Mr Andreas Xanthos. The Commission will be represented by the EU Representation in Athens and officials from the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety.
The JATC was set up in order to support the implementation of the EU Tobacco Products Directive, which lays down rules governing the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco and related products. Coordinated by the Hellenic Cancer Society, Greece, it is a three year collaborative action bringing together 31 project partners and 13 collaborating partners that span across 31 countries, including 25 Member States. The JATC has a budget of €2,5 million financed at 80% by the Health Programme 2014-2020, and will run over a period of 36 months.
The kick-off meeting will be an opportunity for the JATC partners and the Commission to discuss how to best achieve the specific aims of this project, most importantly:
- To enhance extraction and handling of the data collected on tobacco products through the EU-wide product reporting system (EU-CEG);
- To monitor reported ingredients and other relevant data, and provide support related to the tobacco and e-cigarette product regulation;
- To facilitate networking and collaboration of Member State laboratories in order to enhance laboratory assessment of regulated products;
- To support the review of comprehensive industry studies carried out on priority additives with a view of possible regulatory follow-up and updating the list of priority additives;
- To support the dissemination of the outcomes to the public, regulators and researchers;
- To integrate the JATC results into national policies on a sustainable basis in order to achieve effective long-term results in tobacco control;
- To ensure appropriate coordination and evaluation of the Joint Action.
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