Behind closed doors, the Danish presidency has secretly plotted to double down on a restrictive approach that ignores the science of tobacco harm reduction, pushes consumers to give up on better alternatives to smoking, and disregards democratic feedback from EU member states, scientists, and the wider public.
The presidency circulated Council document 16153/25 on 28 November to the European Commission and the capitals of European countries. What it did not plan was for the document to leak on December 2nd to Euractiv. Now available for all to see, the text reveals a last-minute change to the Tobacco Excise Directive for the worse. The focus is on taxation of volume rather than quality for alternative nicotine products. In particular, the minimum tax on heated tobacco is set to more than double, from €155 to €360 per kilogram. Another concession to NGOs hostile to tobacco harm reduction is a very high mandatory minimum of 55% of the retail price, putting the taxation of heated tobacco in line with that of cigarettes.
Such false equivalence does not stand up to scrutiny. We know from available research that heated tobacco is orders of magnitude less harmful than conventional tobacco smoking simply due to biomechanics: heating, rather than lighting up, results in far lower levels of toxic substances. In fact, the most thorough toxicological assessments have found that heated tobacco products release up to 99.8% fewer emissions of the poisonous and harmful chemicals associated with traditional options (like styrene, toluene, benzene, isoprene, and 1,3-butadiene).
It is not just a technical point, since sabotaging harm reduction will leave millions of smokers in Europe worse off. Consumers use heated tobacco products primarily as a substitute to try to quit smoking. As such, any rise in the price of heated tobacco products will result in fewer individuals buying them in favor of more cigarettes. At best, then, any attempt to supposedly “level the tax playing field” will sink health outcomes, pushing those initially willing to stop back into smoking. At worst, cheaper substitutes on the black market will suddenly look tempting, although they are untested, unstable, and dangerous.
However, the most lasting damage of this decision stems from the anti-liberal and anti-democratic manner in which it was adopted. Thousands of EU citizens expressed their concerns about the new format of the Tobacco Excise Directive in the latest consultation, only for the document to ignore them. The text also ignores 83 public health experts who warned that the plan ignores science and derails progress on tobacco harm reduction.
What is especially concerning is that the Member States find themselves at the end of the same silent treatment. Several diplomats have pointed out that the new minimum was never included as an option in impact assessments of consultations. Instead, it is presented as a “take-it or leave-it” strategy to silence any potential objections from states applying rational harm-reduction measures, such as Czechia, Greece, and Sweden, which did not hesitate to defend their strategies today and during their Council presidencies.
Neither individuals nor states will bow to a regulation they had no say in, no matter how well-reasoned that regulation may be. Yet this proposal cannot even claim to be well-reasoned, given actual science and basic economic insights. A reasonable framework would accept different levels of taxation corresponding to the various risk profiles of heated tobacco and other nicotine products, and produce an assessment of the opportunity costs associated with adopting new tax levels (such as illicit trade risks) before drawing conclusions about taxation. It would learn from Czechia’s National Strategy to Prevent and Reduce the Harm Associated with Addictive Behaviour 2019–2027, Greece’s National Action Plan Against Smoking, and Sweden’s long-standing harm-reduction strategy to communicate and include tobacco harm reduction as a pillar of tobacco policy. Such a “super” taxation framework would then not have to be drafted in secret, because it has nothing to fear.
