October 2025. ETHRA submitted to the public consultation on the Proposal for a COUNCIL DIRECTIVE on the structure and rates of excise duty applied to tobacco and tobacco related products (recast).
- A key purpose of the Tobacco Excise Directive is described at the 2nd recital:
The Union’s fiscal legislation on tobacco products needs to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market and, at the same time, a high level of health protection”
- The review of the EU tobacco excise regime explicitly mentions health objectives:
The high number of smokers in the EU is still a matter of significant concern with 24% of the overall EU adult population, and 29% of young Europeans aged 15-24, smoking. The launch of the Europe's Beating Cancer Plan highlights the pivotal role of taxation in reducing tobacco consumption, in deterring young people from smoking.
- The promise of non-combustion. The big opportunity lies in tobacco and nicotine products that do not involve combustion. Almost all tobacco-related harms arise from inhaling products of combustion (tar and hot toxic gases from burning tobacco leaf) and without combustion there are much lower exposures to products of combustion. There are basically four categories of non-combustible product: (1) vaping products, (2) smokeless tobacco and snus, (3) heated tobacco products, and (4) new oral nicotine products such as pouches.
See the full submission here