The European Union's delicate balance in tobacco and nicotine regulation faces a potential upheaval as EU health ministers prepare to convene on June 21. A last-minute proposal from the Danish Health Minister has sparked concerns about disrupting the checks and balances that are meant to characterize the EU's approach to passing laws and making regulations. The controversial proposal affects the always-contentious question of tobacco and nicotine regulation, where missteps could deny smokers access to safer alternatives that are often crucial in helping them quit cigarettes, which continue to damage the health and ultimately cost the lives of too many European citizens.
The alarm was raised by the newly re-elected Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers on his first day back in Brussels. "Apparently, Denmark has opened up to a ban on the flavouring of new nicotine products, including nicotine pouches", he tweeted. "Denmark is trying to pre-empt the Revision of the Tobacco Products Directive expected during this term". This move comes despite the European Commission's failure to publish a report on the public consultation about a new Tobacco Products Directive, TPD 2, after President Ursula von der Leyen halted potentially controversial measures ahead of the European Parliament elections and the process of appointing a new Commission.
Earlier this year, a public assurance was given that the possible revision of the Tobacco Products Directive and its contents would depend on the findings of a scientific evaluation, the public consultation, and a thorough impact assessment. "The political decisions in this respect will be taken by the next Commission, in light of the above preparatory steps", a spokesperson said. However, the Danish proposal appears to be an attempt to push through a new policy before the current Commission ends and before the bodies responsible for European legislation - the Council and the Parliament - can weigh in.
This would not be the first time the Commission has tried to short-circuit the democratic process. Courts in member states have upheld challenges to domestic legislation that transposed European directives, finding that they went beyond EU law in the regulation of heated tobacco products and other safer alternatives to cigarettes. Even if the Commission loses when these cases eventually reach the European Court of Justice, the damage will have been done, with too many smokers continuing to use cigarettes instead of switching to devices like vapes and e-cigarettes that provide nicotine without the cancer-causing smoke.
The fingerprints of the Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, DG SANTE, are evident in the request sent by the Danish Health Minister to his EU counterparts, seeking support for radical proposals that would effectively bypass the TPD continuous evaluation process. Denmark has the worst record for reducing cigarette smoking of any Nordic country, with a smoking rate three times higher than neighboring Sweden, which has a traditional alternative product called snus that allows nicotine absorption without burning tobacco, posing a much lower cancer risk.
Clive Bates, an independent consultant on public health and sustainability and former director of Action on Smoking and Health in the UK, sees the Danish proposal as an attempt by some health ministers to impose tobacco policy measures that member states can't agree on in their own jurisdictions. "If they think more restrictions are justified, they should be making an evidence-based case", he told me. "That should take into account the effects on adults, the effects on young people who otherwise smoke, the effects in young people who don't smoke and the effects of unintended consequences such as illicit trade, people mixing their own products, people going back to smoking …. It's a much more complicated picture than they are making out".
Experts at the Global Forum on Nicotine in Warsaw fear that EU bureaucrats will send millions back to smoking, making it unlikely for the EU's Beating Cancer Plan to meet its aim of reducing cancer. Onerous restrictions on novel nicotine products set out in the plan include flavor bans, public space use bans, plain packaging, and high taxation on vapes and other safer nicotine products, at a time when smoking rates are already increasing in some European countries. The Forum unanimously agreed that while novel tobacco and nicotine products should not be in the hands of minors, bans or extreme measures will not successfully remove products from countries, as the issue lies in enforcement and education, not inadequate regulation.
