Yet none of the revisions to the two tobacco directives has been launched, despite widespread indignation and repeated demands from public health campaigners. The European Union has set itself the goal of a "Tobacco-Free Generation" by 2040. This ambitious goal calls for new and rapid anti-smoking measures.
The European Parliament has been waiting for several years for the Commission to put on the parliamentary agenda the revision of two European directives on tobacco: the 2011 Tobacco Tax Directive (TTD), and the 2014 Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). Our texts must take into account the emergence of "new tobacco products" such as electronic cigarettes, puffs, heating tobacco and nicotine pouches, as well as the explosion of parallel trade, mostly organized by tobacco manufacturers, and knowledge of the environmental damage caused by tobacco growing, the manufacture of new tobacco products and their consumption. To add to the political discussion and define the necessary measures, a group of MEPs led by Michèle Rivasi (Greens/EFA), Anne-Sophie Pelletier (The Left) and Pierre Larouturou (S&D) met between 2021 and 2023, with the participation of the public health associations Smoke Free Partnership (SFP), Alliance Contre le Tabac (ACT), the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) of the University of Bath, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and independent experts.
The themes of parallel trade in tobacco, the "Dentsu Tracking/Jan Hoffmann" scandal, lobbying by tobacco companie.