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Zapatero in smoking row

Madrid: A sneaky smoking session with a fellow politician may have landed Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in trouble a few weeks after his Government banned smoking in the workplace. Opposition politicians said they would raise the subject of Mr Zapatero's smoking habits in Parliament after revelations that he and Artur Mas, a prominent Catalan politician, had chain-smoked their way through negotiations on an autonomy bill. The meeting between Mr Zapatero and Mr Mas was held at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, which is both home and office to the Prime Minister. The outcome of the row looked likely to depend on whether the smoking had taken place in an office or inside the Zapatero family's apartment.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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