With COP11 now imminent in Geneva, a really surprising growth inside Brussels has shifted tone and power throughout the European hurt discount world. After a yr of escalation, maximalist language, rumours of coordinated makes an attempt to close down total product lessons, the most recent compromise draft textual content circulated to EU delegates forward of the FCTC negotiations has are available in significantly softer than anybody assumed seemingly as lately as two weeks in the past.
Sadly, it nonetheless doesn’t recognise tobacco hurt discount (THR) as a proper reputable pillar of tobacco management beneath FCTC, however the delicate tone shift nonetheless issues considerably earlier than the battles that can start contained in the Palais des Nations.
The primary leaked EU inner draft from early October was extensively interpreted by hurt discount advocates as a template to use cigarette-equivalent regulatory structure throughout vapes, pouches and heated tobacco, with flavour restrictions, extreme packaging controls, and filter prohibitions all framed as default motion. Many took it as proof that Europe was about to repeat the Australia abstinence playbook.
The brand new textual content alerts house for smart regulation
Within the revised textual content, restrictions should not eliminated, however are recalibrated. Language describing non-combustible merchandise as “extraordinarily dangerous” has been eliminated, whereas proportionality, scientific proof, emissions information and real-world affect evaluation are actually particularly referenced
Within the revised textual content, restrictions should not eliminated, however are recalibrated. Language describing non-combustible merchandise as “extraordinarily dangerous” has been eliminated, whereas proportionality, scientific proof, emissions information and real-world affect evaluation are actually particularly referenced. Filters beforehand guided for presumptive prohibition, are actually merely flagged for regulatory choices beneath Articles 9 and 10. Flavour restrictions are nonetheless doable, however now not mandated and have as a substitute been delegated to nationwide discretion. That alone is geopolitically vital, significantly for Sweden, the place snus and nicotine pouches have pushed smoking shut to five%.
This new softened tone has naturally been obtained effectively by THR advocates, because it implicitly recognises that many grownup people who smoke are utilizing these merchandise to depart cigarettes. In fact it doesn’t imply the EU is now “hurt discount aligned”, nevertheless it does point out that the bloc just isn’t getting ready to reach in Geneva searching for to erase non-combustible classes solely.
Europeans have spoken
In the meantime, this alteration has coincided with a really loud pan-European public session response on nicotine taxation proposals, which is more likely to have had someting to do with it. Throughout the session interval (from July to October 2025) greater than 13,000 feedback have been formally filed — with Swedish participation significantly excessive. Client teams and tobacco hurt discount specialists and advocates have argued that equalising tax between cigarettes and nicotine pouches would financially penalise probably the most profitable low-risk switching device in Europe.
Denmark’s participation is equally grounded in sensible real-world dynamics. Flavour bans, they argue, have already created underground channels and pushed components of provide casual. In truth, information have algorithmically proven a constant sample: insurance policies that obscure relative danger shield cigarettes, not public well being.
Transferring in direction of a science-led strategy
In the meantime, this EU shift is all taking place whereas a number of different main hurt discount narratives are circulating globally, akin to Juul Labs receiving FDA advertising authorisation once more, and nations akin to Japan and New Zealand, proving that endorsing the usage of novel nicotine merchandise reduces smoking smoking charges. These examples clearly illustrate that innovation and accountable engineering proceed to maneuver ahead, and that regulatory frameworks should be able to distinguishing between product classes on precise danger, not ideology.
This issues at COP11, as a result of this COP may have much less noise about tobacco “future intention” and extra direct confrontation over whether or not non-combustible classes ought to exist as reputable tobacco management instruments. Clive Bates’ COP survival information circulated by the neighborhood this month, emphasised the identical core structural level: the complete FCTC course of can not indefinitely evade the necessity to modernise for a world the place smoke-free nicotine exists and is getting used voluntarily by adults to displace cigarettes with out public spending.
The draft resets COP expectations
The present EU draft nonetheless comprises friction: hurt discount arguments are nonetheless characterised as “trade narrative”, and it nonetheless alerts openness to elevated taxation of non-combustible codecs. Furthermore, it nonetheless doesn’t suggest structural recognition of proportionality as a precept.
On the otherhand, the beforehand thought of absolute-prohibition course is now no less than now not the one path on the desk. For the primary time in two years of negotiation cycles, the EU textual content implicitly recognises that member states don’t essentially agree with its agenda, and permits nationwide outcomes to vary. For a negotiation course of that continuously collapses nuance into world templating, that alone adjustments the body going into Geneva.
For a subject the place most progress within the final decade has come from client switching, industrial innovation and aggressive displacement of smoking (not enforcement), this return to evidence-led framing offers advocates some hope about COP11 not being a completely pre-written script. Nobody thinks the struggle is over. However for the primary time this quarter, and after months of bleak expectation, hurt discount advocates imagine within the slightest probability that this COP might comprise actual negotiation house once more.
Two Main Powers With Contrasting Plans for COP11: Does THR Stand a Probability?
