BRUSSELS, 12 November 2026. This morning the World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA) launched its One Goal, Many Paths – Smoke-Free Europe campaign outside the European Parliament. The consumer group filled the street with foam bubbles to symbolise the “Brussels Bubble”: an EU policy world that has stopped listening to the millions of adults who quit smoking with less harmful alternatives. Moments later, MEPs adopted the report on the implementation of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, which proved the point.

Alberto Gómez Hernández, Gerente de Políticas da Aliança Mundial de Cigarros Eletrônicos, disse: “We came to Parliament this morning to show what the Brussels Bubble looks like: shiny on the inside, deaf to the outside. A few hours later, MEPs showed it to us. More than 100,000 Europeans signed our uma petição against flavour bans and punitive taxes on nicotine alternatives, and many more asked for the same in public consultations. Yet politicians keep ignoring them.”

O relatório calls for the revised Tobacco Products Directive to cover “all tobacco and nicotine products”, with flavour restrictions, plain packaging and higher minimum excise duties among the cited measures. It does not acknowledge that these products differ in risk, although Parliament’s own cardiovascular relatório in September recognised that different nicotine products “may therefore have differentiated risk profiles”.

“Millions of Europeans have left cigarettes behind thanks to vapes, pouches and heated tobacco, but regulators keep ignoring them. If Brussels wants a smoke-free Europe, it has to start by listening to the people who actually got there. Otherwise, the smoke-free goal will never be achieved,” Gómez Hernández acrescentou.

As the Commission prepares the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive, the WVA will keep pressing EU institutions and Member States for regulation based on relative risk.