Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was granted the World Health Organisation’s World No Tobacco Day award for accomplishments in the area of tobacco control, after being nominated by the WHO Country Office in Hungary.

Zsofia Pusztai, Head of the WHO Hungary office, said the Government had brought in measures over the past two years requiring the support of political decision-makers, and the prize was in recognition of this support. "This year, after very careful consideration of several other prominent personalities, Hungary and the Hungarian prime minister were awarded the prize in recognition of what has taken place over the past two years to rein in smoking," she said.

According to WHO’s website, in 2012, Hungary made “outstanding progress” in tobacco control, with the entry into force of ban on smoking in all public places. The organisation mentions, that despite the country ratifying WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2004, “several attempts to comply with the Treaty have failed”. Due to the Prime Minister’s “personal involvement and strong support” to the Ministry of Human Resources efforts in amending the existing legislation, followed by an intensive debate, Parliament adopted the amendment of the Act on the Protection of Non-Smokers in April 2011. WHO additionally highlights that over the past eighteen months he “strongly supported an important increase of the excise tax on tobacco products as well as the regulation of the sale and distribution of tobacco products and introduction of pictorial warnings on tobacco products”.

(Prime Minister’s Office)