Promoted by World Vapers Alliance
Eight EU governments want Brussels to ban nicotine products that haven't been invented yet.
In an open letter to the European Commission, the Dutch health minister, joined by Belgium, Finland, France, Hungary, Latvia, Slovenia and Spain, calls for a "market freeze" on any nicotine product not already sold in the EU, while cigarettes would stay on every shelf. The letter also asks for an EU-wide flavour ban, caps on nicotine strength, plain packaging and the freedom to ban nicotine pouches nationally.
The Commission, which is now rewriting the Tobacco Products Directive, will hear much the same from the public health groups that lobby it. A new report explains why that shouldn't surprise anyone: many of those groups are paid by the Commission.
The Free Market Foundation found that nine Brussels organisations received more than €12.8 million in EU funding over the period the report covers. Three of them spent much of the last year arguing for higher nicotine taxes, flavour restrictions and rules that treat vapes and pouches like cigarettes, which is where the Commission was already heading. The European Cancer Organisation received €1.46 million from the Commission and has been one of the loudest voices against vapes and pouches. The Smoke Free Partnership used a €100,000 grant to campaign for flavour bans. The European Public Health Alliance gets more than half of its budget from the Commission.
Last autumn, the European Cancer Organisation and the Smoke Free Partnership met the Commissioners Hoekstra and Várhelyi. During the same period, they were publicly urging member states and MEPs to back the Commission's own tobacco tax proposal. The Commission pays these groups, the groups campaign for the Commission's policies, and MEPs are then told this is what civil society wants. That is circular lobbying. When the Commission writes the new directive, it will point to support from member states and from civil society, but part of that civil society is funded by the Commission itself. The millions of Europeans who quit smoking by switching to less harmful products have no comparable voice.
Flavours show how this works in practice. Most adults who vape stopped using tobacco flavour long ago, and for many of them that was part of leaving cigarettes behind. Research from Yale found that adults who used flavoured vapes were more likely to quit smoking than those who stuck with tobacco flavour. In Brussels, though, flavours are discussed almost only as a way of attracting children. That framing has reached Parliament too: when the health committee adopted its Beating Cancer Plan report in late September, one MEP told Eunews that only a Europe-wide ban would do. A ban like that would take away one of the things keeping former smokers off cigarettes. many would go back to smoking, and others would turn to the black market.
The market freeze has the same flaw, because protecting what is already on sale means protecting cigarettes. The eight governments say they want a smoke-free generation by 2040. Sweden, the country which already achieved this target, got there because smokers could move to snus, pouches and vapes, and its smoking rate is now under 5%.
When policymakers do hear from consumers, the result tends to look different. Parliament's cardiovascular health report, adopted in September, softened its line on flavour bans to something that "may" apply "where relevant." It also accepted that nicotine products carry different levels of risk.
Nobody is asking to silence these organisations, but the Commission and those organisations must be transparent about who it funds and to give consumers a seat at the table too. The remaining member states should push back on this letter before the directive is rewritten. Vapes and pouches are not cigarettes, and EU law should reflect that.
Michael Landl is the director of the World Vapers' Alliance
