A joint letter to the European Commission calls for a “market freeze” on new nicotine products, broad flavour bans, strict…
Six European consumer organisations have filed a complaint with the European Ombudsman, arguing that the Commission’s consultation on future tobacco and nicotine legislation is methodologically incapable of producing reliable evidence. The complaint also strongly criticises DG SANTE’s language and its response to the concerns raised.
In its answer to a parliamentary question on the French ban, the Commission treats Article 36 TFEU as a shortcut around evidence. Public health cannot be assessed as if cigarettes, combustion and 80 million European smokers did not exist.
After long negotiations on a fundamentally flawed proposal from the European Commission, it now seems that the Tobacco Excise Directive…
Somewhere deep inside the Council working groups, the EU’s tobacco and nicotine policy process appears to have crossed a line from complicated into outright absurd.
The European Commission presents its evaluation of the tobacco control framework as a comprehensive and evidence-based exercise. Yet a closer…
The political reaction to France’s ban on nicotine pouches has now taken a decisive turn. What began as concern over…
Despite extensive discussion and feedback, the proposed tax levels for nicotine pouches remain unchanged from earlier compromise texts. This is not a minor technical detail. It signals that, at least for now, the core approach is to ignore scientific evidence and relative risk.
For a Parliament that routinely proclaims its commitment to evidence-based policymaking and the highest possible level of public health protection scientific evidence should not be controversial.
Little attention is paid to public-health outcomes or to the role such products have played in complementing tobacco control by offering smokers a viable route away from combustion rather than relying solely on economically punitive abstinence-based approaches.