European Union safety experts are due to back plans on Thursday to make all cigarettes sold in the bloc... European Union safety experts are due to back plans on Thursday to make all cigarettes sold in the bloc self-extinguishing in a bid to combat thousands of fire-related deaths and injuries, EC officials told Reuters. Experts from all 27 EU member states are expected to endorse proposals by Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva to make "fire-safe" cigarettes mandatory across the bloc.

Kuneva believes the cigarettes -- which stop burning automatically after a few seconds if not puffed, due to small gaps in the cigarette paper which cuts the circulation of oxygen -- can hugely reduce the number of deaths from fires in the EU. "Once she gets their approval, which is expected following talks and negotiations over the past number of months, she will now be able to start implementing her plan," one official at the EU executive said on Wednesday.

Data from 14 of the EU’s 27 countries shows that over 2,000 deaths a year are caused by cigarette-related fires, with thousands more people injured and tens of millions of euros worth of damage caused. "These cigarettes will also go some way to helping combat some of the forest fires which have been on the upsurge and we know cigarettes have played a part in some of them," another European Commission official said. Commission officials have been working on developing an EU-wide standard for the cigarettes, similar to one in the United States and Canada.

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