html entity names not being displayed as the relevant html symbol in jasper report

I've queries that retrieve snippets of text, which contain various html entity names, most notably € and λ, (not the actual symbol ie € or λ) from a database. I use the same queries to display reams of text in the browser, and in a RTF jasper report. the symbols are always displayed correctly in the browser.

However when i execute the query in jasper to generate a rtf doc, the € string comes out in the rtf doc as "&euro" ie the semi-colon has dissappeared, so instead of €1,000 I get &euro1000. Below is a textfield from my report. I've tried wrapping $P{label.htmlSnippet} in a CDATA but with no luck, the markup is html...so not sure what else I can do?

$P{label.htmlSnippet}

any help, ideas suggestions appreciated

regards John