The European Union vs. the tobacco industry

This May the European Commission’s revised Tobacco Product Directive entered into force. This new law strengthens the rules on how tobacco products are manufactured, produced and presented in the EU, and introduces rules for certain tobacco-related products. Member states will have to apply the new rules from 2016. Tobacco use is responsible for an estimated 700,000 avoidable deaths in the EU every year. The vast majority of smokers start when they are very young – 70 percent before their 18th birthday and 94 percent before the age of 25. The new directive aims to make tobacco products and tobacco consumption less attractive in the EU, in particular for young people. Some of the new rules are the following: 1. mandatory picture and text health warnings have to cover 65 percent of the front and the back of cigarette packs – they are to be placed on the top edge; 50 percent of the sides of packs will also be covered with health warnings. 2. these replace the current printing of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide levels. 3. in order to ensure the visibility of health warnings, cigarette packs are required to have a cuboid shape and each pack will contain a minimum of 20 cigarettes. 4. Similar rules apply to roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco packs, which will also have to carry 65% combined health warnings on the front and back as well as the additional text warnings. However, member states have some discretion when it comes to labelling rules for products not currently used in significant quantities such as pipe tobacco, cigars, cigarillos and smokeless products. Flavourings in cigarettes and RYO tobacco must not be used in quantities that give the product a distinguishable (‘characterising’) flavour other than tobacco. For instance menthol is considered a characterising flavour and will be banned after a phase-out period of four years – a period which applies to all products with more than a 3-percent market share in the EU. The new rules guarantee the product safety and quality of e-cigarettes, e.g. there will be a maximum nicotine concentration level for e-cigarettes, they will have to be child and tamper-proof and health warnings on e-cigarette packs will be mandatory. Hopefully the new strict rules on packages and attractive flavours should help to deter young people from experimenting with, and becoming addicted to, tobacco. The revision is expected to lead to a 2-percent drop in consumption of tobacco over a period of 5 years. This is roughly equivalent to 2.4 million fewer smokers in the European Union, which would translate into annual healthcare saving to the amount of EUR 506 million. (This is an edited version of the European Commission’s MEMO/14/134)