For many years, the corridors of power in Brussels, the Belgian capital, seemed to be peopled almost exclusively by tobacco lobbyists. It was not the Belgian parliament that they stalked, but the European Commission, secretariat of the European Union (EU). Their mission was to try to prevent the development of EU directives that would in due course require each member state to enact effective tobacco control legislation in its own parliament. Sometimes the industry lobbyists’ stalking would turn into a downright stampede, on occasions, the overwhelming majority of people packing out committee rooms would turn out to be doing the industry’s …