Emancipation of the Elders

IGHTER RESTRICTIONS. Still, Germany as a whole has remained surprisingly tolerant of cigarettes, even as other European countries including Ireland, Spain, and Italy moved in recent years to ban smoking in public places. Indeed, despite its nature-loving, outdoorsy image, Germany today has the highest smoking rate among major European countries: nearly 34% of the adult population lights up, according to figures from the World Health Organization. By contrast, only 24% of adults smoke in Italy.

Back in 1998, German lawmakers, fearful of voter backlash, defeated proposed legislation that would have effectively banned smoking from the workplace and most public places. But now many of those same politicians are calling for tighter restrictions, including Agriculture and Consumer Protection Minister Horst Seehofer, who opposed a ban in 1998. Even the Chancellor herself, Angela Merkel, has weighed in on the issue, saying through a spokesman that she is "open to the issue of protecting non-smokers."

TAKE IT OUTSIDE. The public appears ready. Opinion polls from TNS Infratest show that three-quarters of Germans now back a public smoking ban, and nearly 60% favor banning tobacco advertising. As if to punctuate the shifting mood, the June 12 cover of influential news weekly Der Spiegel carried a picture of a woman's mouth with a broken cigarette dangling from her lips and the headline Smoking: The End of Tolerance.

Now, antismoking advocates are preparing a new bill that aims to make Germany's restaurants, bars, and other public buildings smoke-free as early as 2007. For the moment, the nonsmoking lobby appears headed for victory.

Germany's federalist system makes it difficult to enact certain kinds of national legislation--and in this case, the 16 states have some jurisdiction over regulation of smoking in restaurants and businesses. But several state governors have recently voiced support for smoking restrictions, adding to the growing national sense of momentum.

QUESTION OF RIGHTS. As many as 80% of deputies would support a smoking ban today, says Margit Spielmann, a member of Parliament for the Social Democrats. She is preparing a motion that would oblige the federal government to draft legislation to protect nonsmokers in the workplace. "I'm very confident that we will get a majority. People's attitudes about smoking have changed," she says.

It wasn't so long ago that Germans laughed at pictures of New York City office workers huddled together smoking in the winter cold. While the U.S. and a growing number of European countries banned smoking in public places, the Germans continued to puff away. Some even saw the freedom to smoke as a reaction against the fascism of the Nazi era (see BusinessWeek.com, 2/2/2006, "French Tradition Goes Up in Smoke").

But now, the health effects are getting too serious to ignore. More than 100,000 Germans die each year from smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illness, according to the health ministry. Passive smoke kills another 3,300 nonsmokers. The government estimates the total cost to the health-care system from smoking at more than Ђ17 billion ($21.4 billion), or more than 1% of GDP.

COSTLY MATTER. For companies like Salzgitter, it's not just a matter of health but also money. The Brussels-based European Network for Smoking Prevention published a report in 2004 tallying the cost of lost work time, cleaning, and damage to company property from cigarettes and matches. The conclusion? Each employee who smokes costs German companies Ђ1,040 ($1,310) more per year than a nonsmoker.

Smokers also tend to miss an additional two days of work per year due to illness or other causes. For a company with 1,000 employees, that adds up to the equivalent of losing three full-time workers for a year.

Naturally,