The European Commission published last week its evaluation of the EU’s tobacco control framework, a report that will shape the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and influence nicotine policy for the next decade.
The report should have been an honest assessment of how effectively the TPD has reduced smoking and protected consumers, but it came out as a prohibitionist wishlist, drafted to justify tighter restrictions on safer nicotine products rather than to weigh the evidence with any real balance.
The report begins by congratulating the EU’s tobacco control framework for a very modest smoking decline. The smoking rate has fallen only from 28% in 2012 to 24% in 2023, which means the EU is still nowhere near its 2040 smoke-free goal of under 5%. At the current pace, the target would not be reached until around 2110, roughly 70 years late, but that didn’t stop the Commission from self-congratulating itself.
Compare those numbers with the results achieved by Sweden, already smoke-free, the Czech Republic, which went from 30% to 23% between 202 and 2023, and Greece, which went from 42% to 36% in the same period; by simply enabling smokers to switch to safer products, and then the difference is stark. The authors of the report chose to ignore that evidence, along with the broader scientific literature showing that vapes, nicotine pouches and heat-not-burn products can help smokers quit and are much less harmful.
Now put it all together: the report notes that smoking has declined and that the use of alternative products has increased, yet it fails to connect the two trends. It cherry-picks studies highlighting the absolute harms of these products but refuses to compare them to the far greater risks of smoking. It congratulates the Commission for a pathetic decline, while ignoring examples of countries that are outpacing it dramatically. What is driving this bias?
This modus operandi has constituted the European Commission’s unofficial line of work in nicotine policy for years. The Commission has repeatedly dismissed consumer voices, even in public consultations, dismissing them as part of a broader industry narrative supporting tobacco harm reduction. Instead, it has amplified a narrow echo chamber of NGOs funded by itself and Bloomberg Philanthropies to support decisions already taken and lobby on their behalf.
This report was, in fact, partly drafted by a consortium of anti-THR NGOs. One of them is the European Network for Smoking Prevention (ESNP), an organisation known for running campaigns against safer products and pushing for a nicotine-free society. Another one is Vital Strategies, an outspoken anti-vaping advocacy group. The tender process to award this contract to such a consortium was mired in doubts over transparency, mirroring the opaque relationship between these anti-THR NGOs and the European Commission. As a result, the Ombudsman opened an investigation, noting that there were “legitimate concerns as to the partiality and capacity of the NGO to deliver a fair and unbiased assessment”.
Ultimately, this authorship ensured the report served as a convenient justification for the restrictions and outright bans on less harmful alternatives the Commission has long sought to impose.
As a result, this report opens the door for the European Commission to fully subject less harmful nicotine products to the same restrictions as combustible cigarettes despite their vastly lower risk profile. In the name of ensuring a smooth functioning of the internal market, it demands EU-wide harmonisation of rules on vaping flavours and disposables, obviously meaning the Commission should mirror the approaches of the most restrictive member states that have already banned them, imposing those prohibitions across the entire bloc.
This entire process shows a profound lack of respect for democratic procedures and the EU citizens it claims to serve, bypassing open debate and diverse input in favour of pre-cooked narratives from aligned interests. Smokers deserve honest, evidence-based communications and access to these life-saving tools that already helped millions of Europeans quit. Further restricting or banning them will only prevent them from switching and send millions of current users to the black market.
Europe cannot afford another decade of stalled progress on smoking reduction. By rejecting the evidence of harm reduction successes in Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Greece, and instead doubling down with this biased report, the Commission risks entrenching combustible cigarettes as Europe's enduring public health crisis. Policymakers must prioritise smokers' rights to informed choices and less harmful alternatives over the Commission’s ideological bans. Anything less betrays EU citizens, science and the continent's smoke-free ambitions.
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