A Freeze With Far-Reaching Effects
On October 6, 2026, ministers from eight European Union Member States (the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, France, Hungary, Latvia, Slovenia and Spain) wrote to Olivér Várhelyi, European Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare, ahead of the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). Their letter starts from a simple observation: the EU legislation on tobacco products, adopted in 2014, is now outdated. Some of the products it covers have changed, and new ones have appeared. “The emergence of new product categories, rapidly evolving technologies, and increasingly sophisticated marketing strategies have created regulatory gaps that were not anticipated by the current Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and Tobacco Advertising Directive (TAD),” the signatories write.
To keep the next version of the Directive from becoming outdated in turn, they propose a market freeze. “The Member States urge the Commission to introduce a market freeze to make sure no new products containing any form of nicotine or a substance with nicotine-like properties, or any devices used to deliver such products, can enter the EU market in the future,” they ask.
On paper, the intention is understandable. But such a freeze would have direct consequences for tobacco harm reduction. To gauge them, one only has to imagine what it would have done had it been introduced a few years ago.
Vaping Would Never Have Existed
Had it been in force in the mid-2000s, the e-cigarette would never have gained a foothold in Europe. Conventional cigarettes would have faced no serious competition, and many of the millions of vapers on the continent today would probably still be smoking, with all the risks that entails. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco kills more than 7 million people every year, including over 1.6 million non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke. “The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, responsible for over 7 million deaths annually as well as disability and long-term suffering from tobacco-related diseases,” the organisation states.
Today, a large part of the scientific community agrees that vaping is less harmful than smoking. Studies on passive exposure also show that exhaled aerosol dissipates within seconds and that, unlike tobacco smoke, it does not expose bystanders to combustion toxicants. As for quitting, the Cochrane review finds that nicotine e-cigarettes help more people stop smoking than nicotine replacement therapy. These are all benefits a market freeze would have prevented.
A Market Frozen in Favour of Cigarettes
Applied in the years to come, the freeze would have equally serious effects. In tobacco harm reduction, a product’s effectiveness depends above all on its ability to satisfy smokers. Stopping products from evolving means stopping potential innovations, even less harmful and even more effective at helping people quit, from ever reaching Europe. Such products may be hard to imagine today, but who foresaw the invention of the e-cigarette in its time?
And the ministers do not stop there. In the same letter, they also call for a flavour ban, maximum nicotine levels and plain packaging for all products. “To drastically reduce attractiveness for these products, Member States call for the Commission to apply strict maximum nicotine levels across all products, implement a broad flavour ban for all products, implement standardised products and devices and introduce plain packaging for all products,” they specify.
Combined with the freeze, these measures would directly narrow the gap in appeal between cigarettes and their alternatives, even though that gap is precisely what drives smokers to switch. The risk hierarchy would thus be frozen in favour of the deadliest product.
A Freeze That Suits Tobacco Companies
The freeze is also meant to stop the industry from “getting (young) EU citizens addicted for the industry’s financial gain.” But had vaping never existed, how would the tobacco industry’s profits be faring? For years, cigarette sales volumes have kept falling. The decline has been such that tobacco companies have had to embark on a “transformation”, adjusting their discourse. All of them have now launched their own e-cigarette, heated tobacco or nicotine pouch brands. A market freeze would shield these products, already on sale, from any new competition.
There is no doubt that the TPD needs revising to better regulate the products its current version does not cover. But a market freeze would only close the door on alternatives. Cigarettes would remain freely on sale, safe from any new competition for good.
