With the European Commission’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) soon to be revised, the tobacco policy debate in Europe is reaching a boiling point, revealing an ever-increasing divergence between scientific evidence and regulatory action. A rising coalition of consumer advocates, policymakers, and harm reduction experts is now cautioning that the E.U. is on a counterproductive path, one that threatens to slow or even reverse progress in reducing smoking across the bloc.
A united front against EU policy direction
Earlier on April 13, a letter signed by seven consumer organizations from across Europe was addressed to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi. Their statement was unequivocal: the TPD revision that is currently underway is out of step with real-world evidence and neglects the role played by lower risk nicotine products in driving smoking down.
The authors, who include users of vapes, nicotine pouches and other reduced-risk products, said they wanted a move in the direction of risk-proportionate regulation. They called on Brussels to protect adult access to alternatives and look at results in countries like Sweden, the Czech Republic and Greece, where harm reduction strategies have produced some of Europe’s fastest drops in smoking prevalence.
This call is about much more than just a vacuum. It reflects growing apprehension that the regulatory environment of the EU is being progressively shaped by precautionary restrictions rather than comparative risk assessment – an approach which can lead to combustion cigarettes being conflated with oversimplified non-combustibles that carry [significantly] lower risk.
The Netherlands: A real-world example to not follow
And no case better illustrates that mismatching than the Netherlands. The ban on non-tobacco flavours in the country was based on concerns about the infamous youth “gateway effect” for which a tax has been levied. However, the outcomes resemble a case study of policy blowback.
Youth vaping doubled within two years, increasing from 3.7 percent to 7.6 percent. Meanwhile, use by adults dropped sharply—not because demand vanished, but because the legal market imploded. Consumers responded by finding other avenues for their products: 27 percent shopping abroad, 31 percent through online black-market retailers, and 33 percent still buying from unauthorized retailers in their neighbourhood.
But perhaps most concerning of all, cigarette smoking rose, with an extra 60 million cigarettes estimated to have been smoked in 2024 alone. More than a quarter of past users said they either went back to smoking or increased their cigarette consumption after the ban.
For charges like Tim Andrews of Prohibition Does Not Work (PDNW), the implications are obvious. Restricting access to regulated alternatives doesn’t kill nicotine demand; it displaces it. As former INTERPOL official Michael Ellis has pointed out, such conditions provide fertile ground for illicit markets, which allow inferior products to enter the marketplace, reduce tax revenue, and give organized crime greater scope.
Brussels’ interpretation – a worrying disconnect
The bigger-picture problem is that EU policymakers are fas always focusing on theoretical risks rather than empirical results. By emphasizing potential youth uptake—despite declining youth smoking rates—while minimizing cessation benefits for adults, the current framework may threaten one of the most effective tools available to reduce smoking-related harm.
Meanwhile, by allowing access to products like snus and nicotine pouches but exerting tougher controls over combustible tobacco, Sweden has reached the lowest smoking rates in the world and slashed tobacco-related disease significantly. A fact that (incredibly) the EU is still acting completely oblivious to.
Frictions and fractures within the EU
The principle of this “risk gradient” is now coming under pressure at the EU level. Swedish policymakers, including MEPs, have warned that moves that ignore it could undermine a system that has clearly saved lives. They cite stark contrasts across Europe: in countries with restrictive approaches, like Germany, youth smoking remains significantly higher than at home, where it’s fallen to minimal levels.
The policy friction is playing out in legal fights as well. For instance, Italy has officially challenged proposed legislation to ban disposable vapes in Ireland, claiming it contravenes basic EU principles, including the free movement of goods, as set out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Italy’s stand reflects a more widespread problem: blanket restrictions not only complicate public health efforts but also risk fracturing the single market. Such measures may not be proportionate under EU law as they limit products legally manufactured in and sold in other member states. Critics also point out that less extreme alternatives — such as tougher age verification, tailored enforcement, and differentiated taxation — are frequently ignored in favor of a blanket ban.
A lost opportunity?
The discussion is built around a well-established scientific consensus: Combustion, not nicotine, is the main cause of smoking-related disease. But as critics of the E.U.’s approach argue, there is not enough data being incorporated into policymaking. Instead, the current course threatens to impose cigarette-like restrictions on products that are fundamentally different in their risk profile.
The stakes are high. As such, if the TPD revision continues to set policy along these lines — a logical extension further into new restrictions across reducing harm product families without making allowances for their critical differences —the EU may unwittingly ensure that availability of least harmful choices remains heavily restricted, whilst bountiful quantities of the most harmful products continue to receive protection.
These and related policies are a deterrent to a smoke-free Europe, say consumer advocacy organizations such as the World Vapers’ Alliance. Limiting access is sure to push millions of current and former smokers back to cigarette smoking or drive them into unregulated markets, they say. The evidence from the Netherlands and Sweden’s success points to the same conclusion: prohibitionist policies do not eliminate demand — they shift it, with often deleterious consequences.
The first step? Admit to the truth
As the EU completes its next generation of tobacco regulations, it faces a clear choice. It can also continue along a path characterized by precautionary restrictions and regulatory equivalence, or adopt a framework based on comparative risk and real-world evidence.
If the objective is to reduce smoking-related disease, then continuing to facilitate access to less damaging options must be an integral part of the plan. The question now is whether Brussels will be willing to acknowledge the evidence and recalibrate accordingly, or double down on an approach that, also by evidence, is increasingly shown not to work.
