Today, the European Commission proposes to prohibit the sale of flavoured heated tobacco products in the EU. This proposal comes in response to the significant increase in the volumes of heated tobacco products sold across the EU. A recent Commission report showed a 10% pick up in the sales volumes of heated tobacco products in more than five Member States and overall in the EU, heated tobacco products exceeded 2.5 % of total sales of tobacco products. Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said: “By removing flavoured heated tobacco from the market we are taking yet another step towards realising our vision under Europe's Beating Cancer Plan to create a “Tobacco Free Generation” with less than 5% of the population using tobacco by 2040. With nine out of ten lung cancers caused by tobacco, we want to make smoking as unattractive as possible to protect the health of our citizens and save lives. Stronger actions to reduce tobacco consumption, stricter enforcement and keeping pace with new developments to address the endless flow of new products entering the market - particularly important to protect younger people – is key for this. Prevention will always be better than cure.” The proposal will now undergo a period of scrutiny by the Council and the European Parliament and enter into force 20 days after the publication in the Official Journal. Member States will have eight months to transpose the Directive into their national law and after the additional three months of transition, the provisions will start to apply. (More information: Stefan De Keersmaecker – Tel.: +32 229 84680; Darragh Cassidy – Tel.: +32 229 83978.
Details
- Publication date
- 29 June 2022
- Author
- Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety