March 2025: 12 EU countries demand EU TPD revision to include new nicotine products
12 EU countries, led by Netherlands and including Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia and Spain, sent a letter to the EU Health Commissioner to urge the revision of the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). The signatories are particularly worried about the use of e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches by the youth. The 2014 EU TPD does not cover these new nicotine products.
The European Commission (EC) is asked to develop, propose and implement future-proof EU legislation to reduce the attractiveness of e-cigarettes and other emerging nicotine products (like nicotine pouches), especially to young people – including “comprehensive restrictions” on flavors, maximum nicotine levels and plain packaging. The signatories also underlined that national measures are undermined by cross-border sales and social media platforms.
November 2024: Council of the EU recommends the extension of smoke-free environments
Council of the EU (i.e. ministers from the member states) adopted a recommendation that encourages EU countries to broaden the scope of their existing protection against second-hand smoke exposure to include key outdoor areas (playgrounds, restaurant terraces, beaches) and public transportation.
The new measures also apply to the emerging tobacco and tobacco-related products, that have been launched since the adoption of the last Council recommendation on smoke-free areas in 2009, including e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and heated herbal products. The Council states that their emissions may be inhaled by bystanders, exposing them to potentially harmful levels of toxicants, contaminants, and other air pollutants.
The recommendation aims to help reduce exposure to second-hand smoke and aerosols and achieve a tobacco-free generation (i.e. less than 5% of the population uses tobacco products) in Europe by 2040 as set out in Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. The progress made in implementing the (legally non-binding) recommendation will be reported for the first time within five years.
Note that Council’s recommendation comes a few days after a related resolution was overwhelmingly rejected in the European Parliament (- see below for further details).
November 2024: The resolution on smoke-free environments is overwhelmingly rejected in the EU Parliament
The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly against the resolution on extending the smoke-free environments (- see below for further details): 378 against, 152 in favour, and 26 absentees .
The resolution was initially backed by a broad coalition of political groups (with a clear majority in the Parliament); however, the amendments proposed by the right-wing groups, to exclude novel tobacco products (vapes & heated tobacco products) from the text, sparked criticism from the other political groups and led to the rejection of the resolution. The proposed amendments are claimed to be against the nature of the original proposal, which aimed to broaden existing rules by addressing the risks posed by vapes and as well as (combusted & heated) tobacco.
The other contested aspect of the resolution was the extension of smoking bans to outdoor or semi-outdoor areas – defined as partially covered or enclosed spaces like rooftops, balconies, porches, and patios – associated with service establishments such as restaurants, bars and cafes.
The European Council will also vote on the proposal at the next Health Ministers’ meeting. The guidelines, once adopted, would not be legally binding but are intended to provide a framework for Member States to follow as part of wider efforts to curb tobacco-related harm.
September 2024: EU is considering to ban smoking and vaping in outdoor areas
The European Commission (EC) will propose extending the smoking bans to outdoor areas, such as cafe terraces, bus stops, and zoos. The proposed ban expands the 2009 guidelines intended to cut exposure to second-hand smoke in public places, workplaces, and public transport. Smoking bans in outdoor spaces are currently regulated by individual member states on a case-by-case basis. The list of smoke-free environments varies greatly among the member states while the general level of coverage of outdoor spaces in smoke-free policies is low. Under the new guidelines, smoke-free zones are extended to outdoor or semi-outdoor areas including
– partially covered or enclosed spaces like rooftops, balconies, porches, and patios, associated with service establishments such as restaurants, bars, and cafes
– public transport hubs such as bus stops
– outdoor areas linked to workplaces, hospitals and nursing homes
– recreational areas where children are present, including public playgrounds, amusement parks, swimming pools, and zoos
– educational premises from pre-school childcare to university.
With the aim to clear public spaces from all types of aerosols, the proposed draft also covers a broader range of new & emerging products, including heated tobacco products and vapes, whether or not they contain nicotine. Based on a broader definition, the EC seeks to include “tobacco surrogates and any other smoke and/or aerosol emitting products” in the ban. EC states that these products, often marketed as safer alternatives to traditional smoking, still expose bystanders to harmful chemicals through second-hand aerosols and the evidence on the use of emerging products as a cessation aid is inconclusive.
The EC claims that there is growing evidence that second-hand exposure to “aerosols from electronic cigarettes, both with and without nicotine, expose bystanders to quantifiable levels of particulate matter and key toxicants and contaminants”. The guidelines aren’t legally binding, but provide a framework for member states to follow as part of wider efforts to curb tobacco harm.
The EC’s proposal, originally planned for January 2024, has been delayed, raising concerns about the EU’s commitment to its anti-tobacco agenda. A linked reform to the EU’s Tobacco Taxation Directive has now also been pushed to 2025, and some have questioned whether the tobacco industry influenced those decisions. In a December 2023 report, the EU Ombudsman criticised the Commission for failing to disclose meetings with tobacco industry lobbyists.
The revised guidelines are part of the EC’s larger Beating Cancer Plan, which aims to achieve a “tobacco-free generation” by 2040, to cut tobacco use by 30% by 2025, and to see the share of the EU population smoking cut to 5%.
EU: July 2024
In addition to the Danish and Latvian proposals, Estonia proposes stricter regulations for the novel nicotine products (such as, e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches) across the European Union. Estonia’s proposal is approved in the EU Affairs Committee of the Estonian parliament.
Estonia seeks an EU-wide regulation and proposes the European Commission to
– establish list of permitted flavors and set upper limits on nicotine content
– ban online sales
– ban disposable e-cigarettes
– implement standard packaging to reduce product attractiveness
– expand the scope of smoke-free areas.
E-cigarette use among adults increased from 3.8% in 2020 to 10.4% in 2022 in Estonia, according to the health behavior survey. Moreover, nicotine pouch use is becoming increasingly popular, especially among the young adults: %20 of male respondents aged 16-24 years old are regularly using nicotine pouches (2022 survey).
EU: June 2024
EU Health Ministers, from 27 member states, are set to discuss two different proposals, on “strengthening the EU-wide measures to protect the youth from novel tobacco and nicotine products” at the EPSCO Council (Health) meeting on 21 June 2024.
The Latvian proposal (on behalf of 10 member states) highlights the high popularity of vapes among the youth (surpassing conventional cigarettes in popularity) and underlines enticing flavors and digital & social media marketing as the two key facilitators of product adoption by the youth. The proposal calls for a comprehensive approach at the EU-level so that all previously-excluded tobacco and nicotine products (i.e. vapes, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco-free nicotine products) are included in the flavor or characterizing flavor ban. Moreover, the proposal suggests legislative harmonization for distant sale of tobacco & nicotine products and cooperation among the member states to control the cross-border trade.
The Danish proposal (on behalf of 12 member states) highlights the increasing consumption of a broad range of tobacco and nicotine products among the youth and suggests a list of initiatives: a ban on flavours in all nicotine products, a limit on nicotine content and, where necessary, an outright ban on certain products.
EU TPD Revision: Feburary 2024
“Political decisions” about the future of novel tobacco and nicotine products in the EU will be made by the next European Commission, the EU spokesperson stated. The 2024 European Parliament election is scheduled to be held on 6-9 June 2024.
The EU legislative framework for tobacco control, the so-called EU Tobacco Products Directive (EU TPD), aims to improve the functioning of the internal market for tobacco and related products, while ensuring a high level of health protection for European citizens. The latest revision of the Directive (2014/40/EU), which is based on the proposal of the European Commission, entered into force on 19 May 2014 and became applicable in the EU Member States on 20 May 2016.
In February 2023, the European Commission launched an evaluation of the framework for tobacco control. The EU TPD (2014/40/EU) currently covers traditional cigarettes and novel products, such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco, but does not include new products that emerged after 2014 – such as the nicotine pouches and heated nicotine sticks. Due to the lack of an EU framework, Member States have regulated these products differently: for instance, Finland and Denmark legalized nicotine pouches while Belgium and the Netherlands banned them.
source：https://tobaccoinsider.com/regulation-the-eu/
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