Strasbourg, 16 September 2026. The European Parliament adopted in plenary its report on the European Commission’s Safe Hearts Plan, the EU’s first cardiovascular health strategy. The report, drafted by Croatian rapporteur Romana Jerković was heavily amended from its original form before being adopted by the Committee on Public Health (SANT), and includes for the first time an acknowledgment that nicotine products vary in risk, alongside a softened stance on flavour bans.

Alberto Gómez Hernández, Policy Manager of the World Vapers’ Alliance, said: “This report shows the European Parliament is starting to catch up with the science. MEPs have acknowledged that vapes, heat-not-burn products and nicotine pouches carry different risks than cigarettes. That is a meaningful shift from where this file started in January.”

Between the January draft and today’s adopted text, flavour bans moved from being a necessary measure to one that “may be included, where relevant.” Two entirely new paragraphs were added: one calling for smoking cessation strategies to be “strictly aligned with scientific evidence,” and another stating that “nicotine content levels and delivery methods vary across products, and that different nicotine products may therefore have differentiated risk profiles.” The adopted text also flags, for the first time, that current smoking rates in Europe “risk undermining” the EU’s 2040 target of a tobacco-free generation.

“Unfortunately, the European Parliament is not endorsing vaping as a cessation tool today, with the report repeating a WHO line against it and describing e-cigarettes as carrying significant cardiovascular risks. But writing down that nicotine products are not equivalent to cigarettes is the precondition for any risk-based regulation. Policymakers cannot design proportionate rules for a category they refuse to differentiate,” Gómez Hernández added.

The World Vapers’ Alliance will continue to press EU institutions to base nicotine regulation on relative risk as the Tobacco Products Directive revision moves forward, the file where this argument will be tested at full scale.