Ministry threatens total ban on smokeless tobacco: Eckerö Line threatens to reflag another ship in Sweden

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Åland-based shipping company Eckerö Line is threaten to switch its Birka Paradise passenger vessel to operate under the Swedish flag instead of the current Finnish one.
      According to the company, the last straw is the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health’s plan to implement in Finland a total ban on smokeless tobacco, generally known by its Swedish name snus.
      This would mean that one could no longer bring snus into Finland even for one’s personal use.
      Eckerö Line board member Johan Dahlman said in Thursday’s Ålandstidningen daily that registering Birka Paradise in Sweden instead of Finland “is not far off”.
      “It all started with the snus decision”, Dahlman said in the interview.
      At the turn of the year the company’s other passenger ship Eckerö was already flagged out to sail under the Swedish blue-and-yellow. The shipping company explained that it wanted to secure the selling of smokeless tobacco in the vessel’s onboard duty-free shops.
     
According to an EU Commission decision the selling of snus outside of Sweden is illegal.
      Therefore, for example ships registered in Finland and Estonia announce that they only sell smokeless tobacco during the last hour of travel on routes to Sweden, in other words in Swedish territorial waters. In reality, however, snus is more widely available on the ships at other times, too.
      Vessels sailing under the Swedish flag are exempt from the restriction. This is because when Sweden joined the EU in 1995 it managed to negotiate for itself an exception to the EU ban on smokeless tobacco. In Sweden the consumption of snus is seen as a national tradition.
      The shipping companies consider the situation unfair at the very least. The ships sail the same route, but on some of them the sale of snus is allowed, while it is forbidden on others, at least officially.
     
The Finnish Seamen’s Union has voiced concerns over the permanency of the jobs of Finnish sailors. Along with the Eckerö passenger vessel 250 jobs were also shifted to the scope of Swedish labour contracts. If Birka Paradise is reflagged in Sweden, another 300 jobs will go there.
      When a ship is transferred from one country to another, gradually its staff is also replaced.
      For example the pension benefits are weaker in the Swedish sailors’ contract. In the Finnish contract the retirement age is 55-58 years, whereas in the Swedish contract it is 65. Also, owing to the Swedish krona’s (SEK) current exchange rate, the sailors’ salaries would drop.
     
”Concerns have been voiced over where the Finns will get their snus. Nobody seems to be interested in what will happen to the Finnish sailors”, The Finnish Seamen’s Union Secretary Kenneth Bondas says with some astonishment.
      “The selling of smokeless tobacco will not cease. It will simply be sold on ships re-registered in Sweden.”
      A very different matter is how the Finnish Customs can monitor that snus sold on the ships sailing under the Swedish flag is not brought into Finland. The Customs have already announced that they do not have the resources for such monitoring.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Åland-based shipping lines object ban on sales of smokeless tobacco (12.11.2007)

See also:
  Health Commissioner reprimands Astrid Thors for snus liberation campaign (11.12.2008)
  Snus by any other name...(6.5.2008)

Links:
  Snus (Wikipedia)
  Eckerö Line

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