Public consultation on the possible revision of the Tobacco Products Directive 2001/37/EC

Public health community

Public consultation on the possible revision of the Tobacco Products Directive 2001/37/EC

Target groups

Citizens, businesses, non-governmental organisations and national authorities were invited to participate in the consultation.

Period for consultation

From 24 September 2010 to 17 December 2010

Objective of the consultation

The objective of the consultation was to offer an early opportunity for the public to comment on the need to revise the Directive and on various policy options that such a revision may involve.

The Tobacco Products Directive dates from 2001. International and scientific developments as well as sound functioning of the internal market require a deep reflection on whether or not the Directive still fully responds to the challenges and ensures a high level of health protection.

The consultation was based on a broad spectrum of options based on the existing knowledge base. Several options implied that measures at EU level can be either binding or non-binding. Any implications relating to EU competence or to the functioning of the internal market were not addressed in the consultation but will be taken into account when analysing the impact of various policy options.

A PDF version of the consultation document can be found here

Results of consultation and next steps

The consultation generated more than 85 000 contributions from wide range of stakeholders, including citizens, industry, NGOs, governments and public authorities. The responses were carefully analysed and a report was prepared by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Consumers.

The consultation report is available here .

The submissions received on line can be found below. Please note that affiliation is based on self-identification by respondents and has not been validated or verified by the Directorate-General for Health and Consumers.

• Government and public authorities
• Industry
• NGOs
• Citizen:
  

  1	10
  2	11
  3(22 MB)	12
  4(21 MB)	13
  5(21 MB)	14
  6(20 MB)	15
  7	16
  8	17
  9

Some stakeholders have also made their positions known through other channels, including letters, e-mails and within meetings with the Health and Consumers Directorate General.

For transparency reasons, responses submitted by Governments and Ministries of EU Member States as well as EEA countries, including responses sent by ordinary mail, can be found below. It should be noted, however, that there was no obligation for Member States to respond to the public consultation.

• Austrian Federal Ministry of Health
• Belgian Federal Public Service Public Health
• Bulgaria Ministry of Health
• Czech Republic
• Danish Government
• Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications
• Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Government of Åland¹
• French Authorities
• Greek Ministry of Rural Development and Food
• Irish Ministry of Health
• Italian Ministry of Economic Development
• Latvian Ministry of Health
• Lithuanian Ministry of Economy
• The government of the Netherlands
• Polish Ministry of Health
• Slovak Public Health Authority
• Slovenian Ministry of Health
• Spanish General Direction of Public Health of the Ministry of Health and Social Policy
• Sweden
• United Kingdom, Department of Health

EEA:

• Norway and Iceland
• Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services

The Public Consultation Report presents the outcome of the consultation focusing on qualitative rather than quantitative terms. For full transparency, statistical data by affiliation and by country* can be found here. As explained in the Public Consultation Report, about 57% of all citizens' responses were "duplicate"** responses and 73% of the responses came from only three countries.

The outcome of the public consultation will provide useful input to the ongoing process of reviewing the Tobacco Products Directive.

Many participants provided very detailed responses, some which included new sources of information. Much of this work will be taken into account in the ongoing impact assessment that addresses the economic, social and health impacts as well as the legal feasibility of different policy options. The outcome of this analysis will be presented together with the legislative proposal, which is due during the course of next year.

Contact details

DG Health and Consumers, Unit D4 Substances of Human origin and Tobacco control
Postal address: European Commission, DG SANCO B 232, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium
E-mail: SANCO-D4-SOHO-and-TOBACCO-CONTROLec [dot] europa [dot] eu (SANCO-D4-SOHO-and-TOBACCO-CONTROL[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)

¹Annex is being translated and will be published in due delay

*Only countries having at least 100 records have been listed.

** A duplicate response fulfils the following criteria: 1. There had to be at least six duplicate responses containing the same text, 2. The text box had to contain more than three identical words (thus eliminating answers only indicating n/a, no comments, blanks etc.), 3. The text box had to contain text which was not only a copy/paste directly from the consultation document (1-3 jointly) or petition-like contributions.