Belgians Pin Grand Prix U-Turn Hopes on EU

A group of Belgian politicians and business owners are hoping European officials will help them get the Formula One race at Spa-Francorchamps reinstated this year after their cases was thrown out of court last week.

They are waiting for European competition authorities to decide on a complaint that the decision made by Formula One's governing body to cancel the race was influenced by the tobacco industry.

"The FIA must make decisions based on sports, not economics," said Luc Misson, the lawyer representing the group of three business owners and nine politicians. Misson said he expected a decision to be made soon even though the authorities were not working to a deadline.

He said he would go to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg if the authorities in Brussels were to reject their complaint, filed last December.

Misson's other case against the body - the International Automobile Federation (FIA) - was thrown out of civil court in the eastern Belgian town of Verviers last week because most of the group's plaintiffs were politicians with no direct interest in the case.

Another group of local businesses also lost their case against FIA in the same court but plan to appeal. The Belgian race was axed in October after tobacco-sponsored teams voted against it following Belgium's decision to outlaw tobacco sponsorship from this August.

The European Union plans to ban tobacco advertising from mid-2005, while the FIA wants a globally-agreed ban from the end of 2006. The race had been scheduled for August 31.

Dropping the Belgian Grand Prix from the F1 calendar has caused an uproar in the town of Spa as its local economy used to benefit from the thousands of spectators who came to watch the race every year.