It has been quietly drafting a revised directive that will determine the next phase of market opening in 2003.
In Sweden, as in Britain, requiring foreign companies to sign up to such agreements under a revised directive would be inviting protectionism by the back door at a time when Europe needs quite the opposite.
Nokia, which held the No.1 slot with an overall score of 7.3, was nonetheless penalized one point on the Greenpeace rankings for "failing to do proactive lobbying" for a revised directive.
Mr. Dalli also said his ouster had jeopardized chances for the revised directive to be passed before the current term of the European Parliament, which must approve the legislation, expires in 2014.
"If the European parliament doesn't get a final version of the tobacco directive agreed before the European elections next spring, then to all intents and purposes the tobacco industry will have won and the revised directive will be dead in the water," said Deborah Arnott, chief executive of health charity ASH.
Under the revised directive, the quality of the water in each area would be classified as either excellent, good, sufficient or poor.
"I am confident that the revised Directive on Tobacco Products can still be adopted within the mandate of the current Parliament," he said.
The revised directive will include a right to reuse public information; expand the remit to include libraries, museums and archives; create a transparent pricing framework for reproduction, provision and dissemination of the information which also aims to keep costs to a marginal minimum; and encourage data to be made available in open machine-readable formats.
Despite some of the challenges presented by the revised directive, Ms Tuckett concluded: "We are positive because the directive brings in more requirements for providing information to the public, which I think is a really good thing as it enables people to make an informed choice".
The revised directive went into force in June 1998, and banned sponsorship from 2003, with a further three-year extension for "global sports such as Formula One".
