CIGARETTE companies will not be able to advertise their products or sponsor sporting and cultural events under a ban overwhelmingly approved by the European Parliament in Strasbourg yesterday.

Governments will now have three years to implement the new European legislation, which will apply throughout all 15 member countries. Although billboard advertising of cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco will be illegal from 2001, newspapers and magazines will be able to carry such adverts for a further year.

Glamorous international events such as Formula 1 motor racing, which rely heavily on tobacco sponsorship, have been given a special exemption after much behind-the-scenes lobbying. They will continue to be able to accept money from cigarette companies until 2006.

The new restrictions, which are being strongly backed by the Government, are the second major item of EU legislation agreed by MEPs this week. On Tuesday, the European Parliament approved Union-wide measures to allow companies to patent human, animal, and plant genes.

The tobacco advertising ban is designed to prevent cigarette companies enticing young people in particular to take up smoking, by presenting it as a fashionable and sophisticated habit. Supporters of the ban believe it will lead to a fall in the numbers, now running at half a million a year, who die from tobacco related illnesses in the EU.

The move was immediately welcomed by Scottish MEPs across the political spectrum. Strathclyde East member Ken Collins, who chairs the Parliament's environment committee which had pushed through the advertising ban, described it as ''a great triumph for the European Parliament''.

Strathclyde West colleague Hugh McMahon insisted it was ''a historic victory for public health concerns over the interests of the advertising and publishing industry.''

Although SNP Euro-MP Allan Macartney criticised the Prime Minister's decision to exempt Formula 1 motor racing for eight years from the sponsorship ban, he too welcomed the thrust of the new legislation.

''Ten years in the making, the whole ethos of this legislation is to reduce the sales of tobacco and thereby reduce its death rate. Today's vote will bring about a significant move forward in efforts to reduce the burden on the health service of treating smoking-related illnesses,'' he said.

Opponents of the new legislation used last-minute wrecking tactics in Strasbourg yesterday to try to amend the text endorsed earlier this year by EU governments. If they had succeeded, there was strong fears that the Bill could have been thrown out completely. As it was, each of their 39 amendments were conclusively defeated.

The only advertising tolerated under the legislation will be in shops and kiosks where cigarettes are sold and in professional circulars used in the tobacco trade.

Predictably, the EU legislation was immediately criticised by the tobacco industry which has waged a high-profile campaign over the last decade against the restrictions.

Mr David Swan, the chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association, said: ''Banning tobacco advertising and sponsorship will not reduce tobacco consumption nor stop children smoking, as experience elsewhere shows.''