On Thursday night I joined a dozen colleagues for dinner in a restaurant in Brussels.
The evening began with pre-dinner drinks in a designated smoking room that felt more like the drawing room of a small country house. Guests lit up, staff wandered in and out serving drinks, and all was well with the world.
From July this little oasis will be lost when Belgium extends its smoking ban to remove most of the exemptions that were included in the 2007 legislation.
The decision to introduce a comprehensive ban immediately (instead of waiting for the exemptions to be phased out by January 2014) was made in March when Constitutional Court judges ruled that "drawing distinctions between establishments was actually harmful to competition".
In other words, the exemptions that allowed bars and restaurants to have separate smoking rooms are being removed not to 'protect' public health but to create a level playing field. Choice, it seems, is anti-competitive.
Unlike Britain, though, smoking will still be permitted in restaurants and other public buildings (including offices) with special smoking rooms equipped with decent ventilation. Nothing to celebrate, but better than here where even that tiny exemption is outlawed.
See also: Belgium expands smoking ban to all cafes, casinos (Independent), Belgian barkeepers demonstrate against smoking ban (Yahoo) and Reflections on a 'non-country' (Dick Puddlecote)
Hungary 'fell' earlier this week. See here.