For the ordinary vaper or nicotine pouch user, engaging with the EU on regulations that affect us can feel like shouting into the void. Even when the EU calls for consultations on these matters, strange Brussels-based, funded groups emerge to publish paranoid and methodologically flawed conspiracy theories that undermine democracy.
One avenue available to us is the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), an advisory body of the European Union that gives organised civil society a formal voice in EU law‑making.
This month, the EESC has issued a draft opinion on the revision of the Tobacco Taxation Directive (TED). Their core message is as follows:
- Support revising the TED to reflect new products like vapes, heated tobacco, and nicotine pouches.
- Agree that the tax framework needs modernisation.
- Call for a risk-based approach that would see combustible cigarettes with the highest rates of use and harm taxed at lower rates, while harm reduction products are taxed at lower rates.
- Warn that “abrupt or excessive increases” in excise duties could fuel black market trade, reduce legal tax revenues, and even harm public health.
The final point is particularly salient. While the EU and its public health advisors are engaged in an all-out war on nicotine, the smoking rate among citizens aged 15+ is around 1 in 4, according to some sources.
Poorly designed taxes make proven harm-reduction products less accessible to the very people who need them. The effects of asymmetric tax increases for combustible cigarettes vs vapes have been observed across many jurisdictions.
For example, a systematic review and meta‑analysis of e‑cigarette taxation found that higher e‑cig taxes increase smoking prevalence by about 0.8–0.9 percentage points, as some users switch back to combustibles when vaping becomes relatively more expensive. What that research shows is that price sensitivity is a driver for many nicotine users. Poorly thought-out policy can produce unintended consequences.
Sweden’s success
Sweden is one country that has taken a common-sense approach to taxation of nicotine products. As of late 2025, they became “smoke-free” as smoking prevalence rates dropped below 5%. Part of that drive involved their decision to cut excise taxes on snus while raising taxes on cigarettes in 2024.
Once again, this demonstrates the importance of incentivising the smoking population by making healthier products more accessible. Per Smoke Free Sweden, leaked proposals from Brussels about plans to harshly tax harm reduction products would result in a 700% tax increase on nicotine pouches for Swedes.
Former Secretary-General of the World Medical Association and current director of Smoke Free Sweden, Delon Human, states, “If Europe is serious about reducing smoking, it must make lower-risk alternatives more accessible, not push them out of reach.”
He adds, “We know what happens when safer alternatives are overtaxed: smokers stick with cigarettes, illicit trade grows, and governments lose revenue. Sweden’s success shows that encouraging access to lower-risk products saves lives. Europe should follow that evidence, not fight it.”
Human, a well-respected South African physician and consultant, was a former advisor to WHO and UN leaders. It’s high time that these organisations’ EU equivalents took heed of his words on these controversial proposals.
