After intense lobbying from the tobacco companies, the European Parliament is watering down legislation that could have been the world’s toughest anti-tobacco laws to dissuade young people from lighting up cigarettes.

“This is a shameful day for the European Parliament,” said Carl Schlyter, a member from Sweden’s Green Party, “(The) center-right majority has done the bidding of the tobacco industry and voted for weaker rules.”

Some parliamentarians said the level of lobbying from tobacco companies such as Philip Morris has been unprecedented.

Originally, the EU proposed: Covering 75 percent of each cigarette package with graphic health warnings; banning menthol cigarettes and any other flavor; and to end direct consumer sales of so-called “E Cigarettes” in favor of making them prescription-only.  Many of these proposals were already supported by EU member states.

But the European Parliament rejected all this as too harsh.  The ban on flavored cigarettes is now being delayed for eight years, even though many health officials regard added flavors as enticements for youths.  Health warnings will cover only 65 percent of cigarette packets.  And e-cigs will stay on supermarket shelves, as long as they are not specifically marketed as an aide to help quit smoking.

700,000 EU citizens die each year from tobacco-related causes.