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Part of the answer is straightforwardly economic.
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The tobacco industry has
documented financial links to the CDU/CSU, the SPD, and the FDP, whose leadership
has usually proven indifferent or actively hostile to tobacco regulation. The tobacco
industry used various means to funnel money to these parties. The Reemtsma tobacco
firm, native to Germany, sponsored the press lounge at the CDU’s 1997 party convention,
while the party was still in government. Similarly, shortly after their entrance into the
federal government, even the Greens allowed the firm to sponsor their press lounge at a
party convention in 1998, although the outcry was so great that the party vowed not to do
it again. In addition to providing refreshments and free cigarettes to the journalists
covering the party conventions, Reemtsma paid for the rental of expensive technical
equipment that saved the parties tens of thousands of Deutschmarks.
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Tobacco firms
and their lobbies also take out advertisements in party newspapers, providing a welcome
source of revenue. Reemtsma hosted a gala event in 1997, dubbed a “Medientreff,” to
which some 400 guests from the media, entertainment industry, and politics were invited,
including two government cabinet ministers (Jürgen Rüttgers (Research) of the CDU and
Edzard Schmidt-Jorzig (Justice) of the FDP) and the FDP’s Chair Wolfgang Gerhard.
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Last but not least, the German tobacco companies made handsome donations to party
coffers during several years in which domestic legislation on passive smoking and the EU
measures discussed above were being considered. In 1998-99 the CDU/CSU received
DM 162,500 from the tobacco industry and another DM 180,000 from the Burda
publishing house, while the tobacco industry donated DM 103,500 to the SPD.
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(Sums
below 20,000 DM need not be reported, according to campaign finance law, so these
figures may not represent total contributions from these industries.) Only the Greens and
Convention