15 December 2025
By Roger Kennedy
roger@TheCork.ie
The battle over tobacco control policy in Brussels continues to heat up, with a coalition of tobacco industry companies expressing predictable outrage at the spectre of long-overdue EU tax hikes. As reported by Brussels Signal on 11 December, this industry group has addressed a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra pushing them to bury the latest proposals under the Tobacco Excise Directive (TED) revision.
This missive landed just days after Brussels media outlets revealed the Danish EU Council Presidency’s ambitious last-ditch effort to massively increase taxes on most tobacco and nicotine products before its mandate ends on 31 December. Denmark’s revised draft of the Directive includes a new “super tax” on heated tobacco, representing an estimated 132% increase over the Commission’s initial proposal.
Amid the industry’s protests, the Commission must hold its line. By backing Denmark’s bold approach – aligned with leading anti-tobacco NGOs and the World Health Organization (WHO) – and working with the growing group of member-states urging meaningful reform, Brussels can ensure the TED and associated Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) overhauls produce policies that protect public health before industry profits.
Unpacking new tobacco taxes
Due to Big Tobacco’s relentless lobbying and delay tactics, the TED has remained unchanged since 2011 – even as heated tobacco, nicotine pouches and vaping products have transformed the European market. The Commission initiated the review with its July 2025 proposal, aiming to modernise an outdated framework by harmonising excise duties, integrating these newer products and tightening controls on raw tobacco – steps that directly threaten the price differentials between new and traditional tobacco products sustaining Big Tobacco’s profit margins and efforts to attract new consumers.
The compromise text circulated by the Danish Presidency on 28 November pushes this effort further, introducing tighter definitions, a sharp rise in the minimum tax on heated tobacco and revisions to key product categories – measures designed to close loopholes long exploited by the industry and move the TED toward WHO- and NGO-backed positions. The centrepiece of the industry’s outrage is the new “super tax”, which increases the minimum rate from €155 to €360 per kilogram and adds a 55% retail price minimum.
Beyond heated tobacco, the Danish draft also strengthens definitions for “raw tobacco” and “electronic cigarettes” to eliminate ambiguities and ensure the highest possible taxation applies across all formats. Minimum rates for cigarettes, rolling tobacco and cigars are also significantly increased, while nicotine pouches face steep scheduled rises, reaching at least €143 per kilogram or 50% of retail price by 2032.
These reforms have triggered divergent reactions among member-states, notably due to the significant intra-EU gaps in domestic tax regimes. For high-tax countries like France and the Netherlands, the changes will be marginal, but for low-tax Member States diverging from WHO FCTC-recommended levels the impact will be far greater, with increases of about €1.70 per pack of 20 cigarettes in Greece, €1.10 in Italy and €2.80 per can of 20 nicotine pouches in Sweden.
Breaking from Big Tobacco’s influence
Italy and Greece, joined by countries like Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria, are unsurprisingly the loudest critics of the Danish push, having opposed the Commission’s July 2025 proposal from the start. These governments continue to reject WHO-aligned tax increases on novel products, insisting on maintaining price gaps with cigarettes to safeguard an alleged “harm reduction” role or to avoid fuelling illicit trade – positions that mirror industry talking points rather than evidence-based policy.
Indeed, such claims reflect the tobacco industry’s deep economic footprint in these countries, where manufacturers have invested billions in new production facilities for heated tobacco and nicotine products, enabling manufacturers to tighten their political influence and secure loyal allies in Brussels. A new report from tobacco control NGOs Contre-Feu and STOP makes this clear, documenting 49 industry-linked lobbying organisations, roughly €14 million per year in declared spending, 257 meetings with EU policymakers since 2023, and multiple undeclared interactions within EU institutions.
As the report shows, the industry has hardly slowed its efforts, instead building on a decade of shadow lobbying that successfully delayed both the TED and TPD and shaped the EU’s 2019 track-and-trace system to its advantage. This traceability system, run by companies with deep financial and technological ties to the tobacco industry – including Dentsu Tracking, Inexto, Atos and Worldline – directly violates the WHO FCTC’s requirements for industry-independent oversight under its Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade of Tobacco Products.
With this indirect control of the EU traceability system, the tobacco industry has continued profiting from illicit and parallel trade that it directly feeds, capitalising on large tax gaps between Member States. As the Commission at last signals a tougher stance through the TED and TPD revisions, Big Tobacco is escalating its influence efforts preserve the fragmented, weak regulatory environment that has served it well: a WHO-non-compliant traceability regime, low-tax jurisdictions and favourable regulatory treatment for new tobacco products.
WHO summits pointing way forward
In the face of the tobacco industry’s latest assault, last month’s COP11 and MOP4 summits, convened under the WHO FCTC, offered a welcome source of momentum for the EU’s anti-tobacco fight. Although the Italy-led, industry-aligned coalition blocked a unified EU mandate aligned with the Commission’s, WHO-influenced position, powerful member-states like France, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland – now joined by Denmark – held a far more assertive line against industry interference, signaling an end to Europe’s long period of political inertia on tobacco.
For the first time in over a decade, a critical mass within the Union seems prepared to challenge industry-crafted narratives and restore EU action to the objectives of the WHO FCTC and its Protocol. The forthcoming revisions of the TPD and TED now offer a decisive opportunity to rebuild the EU’s tobacco control framework on coherent, ambitious and WHO-compliant foundations.
Brussels must now take inspiration from domestic leaders like French MP Frédéric Valletoux, whose resolution to introduce national quotas on tobacco deliveries at EU level – paired with a call for an industry-independent traceability system – was adopted unanimously by the National Assembly on 26 November, a rare outcome in today’s political climate. By embedding these measures into the TPD and securing strong tax hikes on both traditional and novel products, the Commission can finally align EU tobacco control with the WHO FCTC and its Protocol.
In the wake of COP11 and MOP4, a decisive moment has arrived. Big Tobacco’s warnings and Denmark’s ambitious tax proposals point to a clear choice: either Europe advances a coherent, health-driven tobacco control policy aligned with the WHO FCTC or it allows familiar pressure to stall long-overdue reform. In the decisive coming months, the Commission should harness the momentum created by Denmark and allied member-states to resist any dilution of the TED and TPD revisions and deliver a framework that puts public health first.