BRUSSELS, 3 June 2026. The European Parliament has, for the first time, formally acknowledged that Sweden has reached the smoke-free target. In a chart of smoking rates across the bloc, the Parliament placed Sweden alone at the bottom, the first member state to pass the 5 per cent threshold, fifteen years before the EU’s 2040 deadline. The EU average stands at 24 per cent.

Sweden reached this point by giving smokers access to less harmful alternatives. Snus for decades, then nicotine pouches and vapes. The latest national figures put daily smoking at just 3.7 per cent. Sweden also records 41 per cent fewer cancer cases and 44 per cent lower tobacco-related mortality than the EU average.

Michael Landl, Director of the World Vapers’ Alliance, said:
“Brussels has finally put it in writing: Sweden won. Now it has to explain why it keeps fighting the exact method that got Sweden there.”

The World Vapers’ Alliance notes the contradiction at the heart of EU policy. While the Parliament recognises the result, the European Commission continues to treat the products behind it as if they were as dangerous as cigarettes, signalling new restrictions and higher taxes on the very alternatives that made Sweden smoke-free.

“You cannot celebrate the destination and ban the road that leads to it. Every country still stuck with high smoking rates should be copying Sweden, not Brussels,” Landl added.

The World Vapers’ Alliance is calling on the Commission to align its tobacco policy with the evidence its own Parliament has now published, and to base the upcoming revision of the Tobacco Products Directive on what works rather than on prohibition.