The TPD evaluation report was supposed to deliver an objective, data-driven assessment of whether the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive has succeeded in protecting public health and putting the EU on track to achieve its 2040 smoke-free goal. 

Instead, the report claims TPD has been successful despite smoking prevalence barely budging from 28% in 2012 to 24% today in the EU. At this pathetic rate, the bloc is on track to miss its 2040 smoke-free goal (prevalence under 5%) by roughly 70 years. Yet the report portrays TPD’s health warnings, menthol bans, and marketing curbs as effective, arguing they simply need “completion” through expanded coverage of alternatives. 

This spin ignores the math and sets up flavour bans, disposable vape bans, and other restrictions on safer nicotine products as the fix, treating them almost like cigarettes.

A Lobbyist Blueprint Masquerading as Analysis

The report’s biggest red flag is its authorship. Rather than a neutral analysis, it was outsourced to a consortium led by the European Network on Smoking Prevention (ENSP), an organisation bankrolled by Michael Bloomberg’s Vital Strategies, a global funder of anti-harm reduction campaigns. 

ENSP has long lobbied for sweeping bans on vapes, pouches, and beyond. Despite its obvious conflict of interest to carry out this analysis, the ENSP received €3 million in EU taxpayer money to produce a “research” piece that perfectly mirrors their prohibitionist wishlist, raising grave doubts about independence and transparency.

What should have been a balanced evaluation reads like activism. While millions of ex-smokers credit alternatives for quitting, Brussels paid their opponents to dictate the narrative.

The Report’s Core Contradiction

The report’s fundamental flaw lies in its incoherent logic: it highlights stagnant smoking progress under TPD yet responds by targeting the alternative nicotine products that have fueled dramatic successes in reducing smoking prevalence in several member states. 

While the EU stalls, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Greece demonstrate how making safer alternatives accessible, affordable, and appealing drives rapid progress toward smoke-free goals:

Sweden leads as Europe’s harm reduction pioneer, achieving 3.7% adult smoking prevalence: a truly smoke-free society 16 years ahead of the EU’s 2040 target. This success stems from decades of unrestricted access to snus alongside the rapid rise of modern nicotine pouches and vapes, which have helped adult smokers switch while delivering smoking-related illness and death rates far below the EU average.

The Czech Republic recorded the bloc’s fastest decline in smoking prevalence, cutting it by 23% in just three years (from 30% in 2021 to 23% in 2024). By keeping vapes affordable and untaxed and ensuring flavours remain accessible, Czechia has shown how pragmatic policies accelerate quitting without demonising reduced-risk options.

Greece, once Europe’s highest-smoking nation, reversed course dramatically, reducing prevalence by 14% between 2021 and 2024 (42% to 36%), equating to ~600,000 fewer smokers. Science-based risk communication combined with cheap, appealing alternatives enabled adults to switch effectively, transforming a cultural stronghold of cigarettes into a harm reduction success story.

These countries prove a simple truth: when regulators prioritise switching over prohibition, smoking rates fall fastest.

Time for Real Solutions

The European Commission must wake up to reality, listen to science and stop dismissing tobacco harm reduction (THR) as mere “industry narrative” while ignoring the lived experiences of millions of ex-smokers. TPD3 should protect adult choice, affordability, and flavours instead of equating far safer products with deadly cigarettes. 

Harm reduction isn’t just theory, it’s delivering real results across Europe. It’s time for Brussels to catch up with evidence, not to follow prohibitionist dogma.