(Photo: AP)

BERLIN, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Politicians of Germany's governing conservative union CDU/CSU called for a general ban on advertising smoking products on Monday.

"No matter filter or e-cigarette, products containing nicotine should not be allowed to be advertised. Neither in the cinema nor on posters," said German minister for agriculture and food Julia Kloeckner.

Kloeckner called for a ban on smoking advertisements in cinema showings admissible for adolescents by 2021 and a ban on billboard advertising for nicotine products by 2022.

However, a general advertising ban is also met with resistance within the governing parties. Joachim Pfeiffer, CDU/CSU economic policy spokesman, said that an advertising ban on tobacco products as well as e-cigarettes would be against the German constitution, adding that "tobacco advertising is already severely restricted."

The German Smoking Tobacco Association (VdR) emphasized that "economic advertising is protected by freedom of expression," adding that a general ban on advertising in addition to the already "massively" intervening government would be a demand "unworthy of discussion."

Germany is the only country in the European Union that still allows tobacco companies to advertise their products on posters and in cinemas despite having made a commitment to the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2005 to issue a "comprehensive ban on all forms of tobacco advertising" by 2010 at the latest.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and government's drug commissioner Daniela Ludwig both have spoken out in favor of such a ban.

"If it was up to me, we should ban advertising on tobacco products," Merkel said earlier this year and promised an agreement by the end of 2019 to decide on the "highly discussed topic within the parliamentary group."

Since 1975, tobacco advertising in Germany is already banned in radio and on television. In 2003, further restrictions that banned tobacco commercials in cinemas before six o'clock in the evening were added. A ban on tobacco advertisement in newspapers and magazines as well as on the internet followed in 2007.