An overwhelming majority of EU citizens who responded to a European Commission initiative say they support tobacco harm reduction products.

The Commission’s “Call for Evidence” on the legislative framework for tobacco control received an unprecedented level of feedback, with consumers of alternatives to tobacco products – vaping, heated tobacco and oral nicotine pouches – making their voices heard in huge numbers.

More than 24,000 EU citizens responded to the call, launched by the Commission as part of its ongoing evaluation of what future EU tobacco laws will look like through revision of the Tobacco Products Directive.

The massive interest in the issue may surprise some and may put the European Commission on the back foot as has been seen by some as having previously failed to support ‘tobacco harm reduction’.

The 4-week public consultation, from 20 May to 17 June, had one of the biggest ever responses to a consultation. On average, calls of this length receive around 354 submissions. In recent years, only the “call for evidence” for a digital euro for Europe received a similar scale of a response, but still fell short of the 20,000 submission mark despite taking place over a longer period of time (10 weeks).

Of the 24.000 submissions, more than 90% came from individual EU citizens, suggesting the extent to which this issue is a priority for the European public at large. Many submissions came from citizens in Germany, Italy and Romania.

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