The dream of a “smokefree Europe” is going up in smoke

As “World No Tobacco Day” approaches, Brussels’s grand rhetoric of building a “smokefree generation” by 2040 sounds great. In reality, though, the EU’s policy direction on this crucial public health issue remains stubbornly ineffective. By treating safer nicotine alternatives as deadly combustible cigarettes, the European Union risks turning public health into an ideological war – one that could keep millions smoking instead of helping them quit.

Upcoming changes to the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), Europe’s regulatory bible for nicotine products, will introduce harsh penalties on alternative nicotine products like vapes and pouches. This is despite the fact that these products help smokers quit and are an essential part of making Europe smokefree. The EU is planning to ban flavoured vapes and nicotine pouches, make them harder to buy, raise taxes, and enforce heavy fines.

The EU sees all nicotine consumption as equivalent. This results in the dangerous conclusion that combustible cigarettes present the same risk as safer products which millions of smokers use to quit smoking.

Public trust decreases when citizens perceive public health regulations as a money-grabbing exercise. If the EU makes safe alternatives too expensive or difficult to obtain, consumers will return to smoking cigarettes as alternatives and using black market products to avoid the restrictions. According to the Special Eurobarometer 482 survey, an overwhelming 82.5 per cent of Europeans who smoke cite "lower prices" as their primary reason for turning to black-market products. By taxing safer alternatives out of existence, the EU is not safeguarding citizens' rights; it is actively fuelling the illicit market. The smokefree vision of Europe can become a reality only when Brussels abandons its efforts to remove products like vapes and pouches that support people quitting smoking.

To get a sense of just how deep this cultural malaise runs in Brussels, consider recent comments from top officials. Soon after the publication of an assessment report on tobacco regulation, the EU Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi made a startling announcement at an annual health conference. "From reading the assessment," Várhelyi said, "it appears that these new products are causing the same amount of harm as traditional tobacco products."

Health messaging needs to provide trustworthy information that comes from scientific research. The evidence is conclusive. Várhelyi's statements contain multiple factual inaccuracies. Citizens deserve respectful treatment from politicians who should not distort scientific facts to support their hostile agendas. This is more than poor policy. It is unscientific scaremongering.

Major health groups, including Public Health England, have found vaping is around 95 per cent less harmful than smoking. Studies clearly show that smokers who completely switch to e-cigarettes greatly lower their risk of suffering from smoking-related diseases. While a few headline-grabbing reports have claimed vaping is dangerous, those studies were quickly debunked. Reputable experts re-checked the data and proved those claims wrong.

Vapes and nicotine pouches do not contain tobacco, making them many times healthier than smoking. Hundreds of thousands of people die in the EU from smoking tobacco each year. Burning tobacco, as cigarettes do, releases thousands of toxins that destroy lungs and hearts through tar and carbon monoxide. Nicotine itself does not cause death. Switching from smoking cigarettes to consuming nicotine in other ways, such as vaping or using nicotine pouches, therefore dramatically reduces – or eliminates – the health risks. This is the polar opposite of what Commissioner Várhelyi said.

The TPD changes seem designed to squeeze reduced-harm nicotine products out of the market – the opposite of what you would do if you wanted a smokefree Europe. When safer alternatives become unaffordable and unappealing, demand shifts to the black market, which bypasses all age restrictions and quality control measures.

There is no guesswork here. There are endless research papers and case studies showing the best way to become smokefree is for smokers to switch to less harmful ways of consuming nicotine. Sweden, Europe’s only smokefree country, achieved its success by keeping snus and nicotine pouches as safe smoking alternatives. Swedish men have the lowest lung cancer death rate compared to the EU average because smokers switched from cigarettes to safer alternatives. 

Public health goals and legislative reality often clash – and countries in Central and Eastern Europe are no exception. Even at the national level, several countries are drifting away from pragmatic smokefree policies. A new Polish law will impose a high excise tax, flavour bans, and a whole host of other fresh restrictions on nicotine pouches, driving smokers away from using them to quit cigarettes. Similarly, Bulgaria's National Assembly recently considered a ban on all vaping products, ultimately deciding to ban disposable vapes. Slovenia has also pushed through amendments banning all vape flavours except tobacco.

By ignoring the opportunity these products present to make their nations more smokefree, these governments are ignoring the evidence coming from neighbouring areas – like Russia, where the growing interest in alternatives such as vapes and snus has led to a huge double-digit drop in cigarette sales. Instead of aligning around sensible harm reduction, the region is making a patchwork of prohibitive and confusing regulations. It will be Eastern European smokers, and their families, who will lose out from this needless politicking.

This is not merely a case of reduced-harm nicotine products getting caught up in tobacco regulation. Some regulators seem determined to eradicate nicotine itself, no matter the consequences. The Czech Republic, for instance, recently slid nicotine pouches out of a legislative grey area by setting tough nicotine limits at 12mg per pouch. Czech politicians then went further, banning other healthy ingredients like vitamins and minerals. This was done in an apparent bid to prevent any smoker correctly believing they can improve their health by switching from cigarettes to nicotine pouches. Thanks to this mishmash of short-sighted taxes and regulations, citizens and tourists moving across Europe end up having to navigate a maze of shifting vaping and nicotine rules, with what is legal, what is purchasable, and what is permitted in public use changing wildly from country to country. If CEE nations and Brussels keep preferring taxation and outright prohibition over more pragmatic regulation, they may end up pricing safer alternatives out of the market and effectively push users back toward combustible cigarettes or underground black-market supply, jettisoning the smokefree dream.

A negative, punitive policy toward tobacco and nicotine users will not improve Europe’s lot. Only a positive, forward-looking policy that provides a clear path to quitting for smokers can help. If Brussels persists with the TPD in targeting reduced-harm products, the hope of a smokefree Europe will go up in smoke.

Arta Haxhixhemajli is a Kosovar researcher, a former non-resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a writer with Young Voices. Her research covers international relations, security and geopolitics.