European Union employers can legally refuse to hire smokers

'Our anti-discrimination legislation for the workplace covers four areas .. Smokers are not included.'

Employers within the European Union may legally refuse to hire smokers, says the governing European Commission. Katharina von Schnurbein, a spokesperson for the commissioner of employment and social affairs, says the EU is not advocating that employers shun people who smoke. However, smoking is not covered by anti-discrimination legislation adopted by the commission, she notes.

"Our anti-discrimination legislation for the workplace covers four areas — age, disability, religion or belief and sexual orientation," she said. "Then in general (there are) the rules cover gender and race, and that's it. Smokers are not included in that list. There are a lot of things this doesn't cover - you could say I don't want an alcoholic working for me, whatever." There have been no formal proposals to extend existing anti-discrimination protection to include smokers, von Schnurbein added.

The question arose after an Irish call centre published a job advertisement stipulating that "smokers need not apply." Ireland enacted a smoking ban in enclosed workplaces in 2004. The number of smokers in the 25 European Union (and five EU candidate states) has dropped to 27% of the population of 450 million last year, down significantly from 33% in 2002.

National Union (CA)