SMOKE FREE PARTNERSHIP UPDATES

Luk Joossens, our Senior Advisor and Erin Roman, our  Director, contributed to a blog on tobacco control. 
They discuss whether nearly 200 billion unique identifiers on EU tobacco products are truly helping to investigate illicit tobacco trade. Moreover, they note that although the EU’s Tracking and Tracing (T&T) system has been operational for several years and holds vast amounts of data, no public evaluation has shown how effectively it supports investigations or law enforcement.
At the global level, they highlight progress under the WHO FCTC Protocol, but stress that many countries still need technical and financial support to establish independent T&T systems. They call for greater transparency, reporting, and law enforcement involvement to ensure these systems genuinely help combat illicit trade.

For more information, please click on the following link.

Less than a week after the WHO reported Europe is now world leader for smoking rates, Euractiv published a piece based on an interview with a tobacco industry executive. As momentum builds for stronger tobacco control regulations at the EUlevel, so too does the predictable, well-funded opposition from the industry. Policymakers and media must view this story not as an economic commentary, but as a typical tobacco industry lobbying tactic designed to block and dilute effective health policy.

Read the full press release below:

The Smoke Free Partnership is pleased to announced the upcoming Webinar ‘Exposing Tobacco Industry Interference: European TII Index 2025’, taking place online on 12 November.

The TII Index tracks how the tobacco industry influences public health policymaking across 25 countries in the EuroRegion. It offers a comparative overview of national efforts to protect policy from industry interference, highlighting both progress and remaining gaps.

The webinar will take place online and will offer a valuable space for dialogue, learning, and collaboration, including with national health authorities, civil society, and WHO FCTC focal points.

Your voice matters in this conversation. Let’s move tobacco control forward together!

Register now through the link and take a look at the Agenda below

Brussels, 30 September 2025 — The Board of the Smoke Free Partnership (SFP) is delighted to announce the appointment of Erin Roman as its new Director, effective from 1 November 2025.

A broad coalition of European health organisations, including the Smoke Free Partnership (SFP), the European Cancer Organisation, the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), the European Respiratory Society (ERS), and the European Cancer League, is urgently calling on EU Member States to strongly support the revision of the EU Tobacco Excise Directive (TED).

Read the full press release and letter below:

Paris, 19 August 2025 – The Comité national contre le tabagisme (CNCT) and the Smoke Free Partnership (SFP) deplore the failure of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC-5.2), which ended in Geneva without agreement on an ambitious text. At a time when urgent and binding measures are required to address both environmental and health crises, discussions were paralysed by the influence of powerful economic interests, foremost among them the petrochemical and plastics industries. This deadlock is even more alarming as plastic pollution constitutes one of the most serious threats to biodiversity, soil and water quality, and public health.

SFP congratulates the European Commission for moving ahead with a plan to increase taxes on tobacco products. However, taxes on heated tobacco, roll your own cigarettes, e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches should be closer aligned with the rates of cigarettes. After over a decade of delay, this long-anticipated update offers the European Union a renewed opportunity to align fiscal tools with its health objectives, reduce tobacco use, and accelerate progress toward a Tobacco-Free Generation by 2040.

Policy Brief - Ukraine’s experience reveals how tobacco companies are adapting to tax reforms by manipulating pricing strategies, particularly concerning heated tobacco products (HTPs) and electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes). Findings of this new research provide critical insights for EU policymakers by highlighting the benefit of consistent excise policies across tobacco products and Member States.

The 2024 edition of the infographic on the presence of the tobacco industry in the EU policy-making environment, based on 2023 data, has been released!

According to a new report endorsed by 57 civil society organizations worldwide, the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) has been compromised by several global disruptions. These disruptions include the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, wars and political conflict. This global instability has contributed to 95 million additional tobacco users who would have otherwise quit by 2025.

“The worldwide tobacco control effort is resilient, but it’s not immune to global disruptions that are affecting many aspects of sustainable development,” said Les Hagen, executive director of ASH Canada and the primary author of the report. “These disruptions are compromising tobacco control efforts around the world. The situation would likely be much worse if not for the momentum created by 20 years of treaty implementation”.

The report addresses Target 3a of the UN Sustainable Development Goals—tobacco treaty implementation—and was recently submitted to the UN Economic and Social Council, which oversees global sustainable development. 

This year’s World No Tobacco Day theme, “Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products,” emphasises the need to dismantle the illusion of harmlessness created by sleek packaging, digital marketing, and flavour additives. The event serves as a critical moment to reaffirm collective commitment to protecting public health, particularly among youth, and to strengthen the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

To raise awareness of the tobacco industry manipulative tactics, the WHO Regional Office for Europe, in collaboration with partners the European Respiratory Society, the Spanish Association Against Cancer, the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention, and the Smoke Free Partnership, hosted the high-level regional workshop. The event also serves as an opportunity to honor the recipients of the 2025 World No Tobacco Day Awards from the WHO European Region, awarded to individuals and organisations that have demonstrated exceptional commitment to tobacco control.

The SFP Board announces the departure of SFP Director Lilia Olefir at the end of October 2025 to pursue a new personal and professional path.

The Smoke Free Partnership is hiring a new Director. Apply before 13 June 2025. 

The latest 2024 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) reports a rise in overall daily rates of smoking and vaping among 15–16-year-olds from 7.9% in 2019 to 14% in 2024, with higher occurrences in Bulgaria and Hungary (25%). Moreover, as a result from the tobacco industry's deliberate targeting of female consumers, girls show higher daily rates of combined smoking and vaping than boys (15% among girls versus 12% among boys).

The Smoke Free Partnership (SFP) Coalition, the European Respiratory Society (ERS), the European Cancer Organisation (ECO), and the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP) have joined forces to express their full support for the 12 EU Member States urging the European Commission to revise the Tobacco Products Directive, the Tobacco Advertising Directive, and the Tobacco Taxation Directive without further delay. 

In December 2024, the Council officially adopted its Recommendation on Smoke and Aerosol-Free Environments, marking a significant victory for public health across the EU. This initiative expands protections by covering heated tobacco products, e-cigarettes (both nicotine and nicotine-free), and tobacco surrogates, ensuring stronger safeguards for everyone.

Key highlights:

• Broader Scope: new and emerging tobacco products are included.
• Expanding Smoke & Aerosol-Free Zones: protection now extends to public playgrounds, amusement parks, healthcare & education premises, beaches, outdoor restaurant spaces, and transport hubs.
• Tobacco’s Toll: smoking remains a leading cause of preventable disease, affecting millions across the EU, this recommendation is a crucial step in tackling the issue.

We have created an infographic summarising these key provisions and statistics. Also available in multiple languages (CS, DE, EL, ES, HU, IT, MT, PL, PT). 

Together with Health Funds for a Smoke-Free Netherlands, SFP has written to EU Commissioner Hoekstra to emphasize the critical importance of the revision of the Tobacco Taxation Directive.

The Smoke Free Partnership presents this position paper to provide evidence-based recommendations for updating the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) in alignment with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The paper emphasizes the need to strengthen the directive to address the rising use of alternative tobacco products, such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, and to counter the tobacco industry's evolving strategies.

With a new European Parliament and a new college of Commissioners, the process of renewal of the European Union Tobacco Tax Directive should resume without further delay. Research in the Economics for Health (formerly Tobacconomics) series evaluated the European Commission’s likely lines of reform, as per an unofficial draft that has circulated since late 2022, identifying areas where reasonable enhancements could boost its public health impact. This brief discusses these enhancements and illustrates their effects vis-à-vis the Directive currently in force and the Commission’s Draft. While the delay in the policy process is unfortunate, there is a window of opportunity to push for the enhancements presented herein, so that the next Directive becomes a pillar of Europe’s Beating Cancer plan.

Busan, December 2^nd, 2024 - The fifth and final Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC5) tasked with drawing up a legally binding international treaty to put an end to plastic pollution ended on 1 December 2024 in Busan, South Korea, and failed to produce an agreement to finish drafting the first international treaty on plastics. There is general agreement to resume the session later.

Smoke Free Partnership (SFP) fully supports the adoption of strengthened Council Recommendation on smoke- and aerosol-free environments during the EPSCO meeting on the 3rd of December 2024. The evidence is irrefutable, public support is unwavering, and the time to act is now.

Brussels, 3 December 2024 – Smoke Free Partnership warmly congratulates the new European Commissioner for Health, Olivér Várhelyi. Additionally, we commend the Council of the European Union and the Hungarian Presidency for their leadership in adopting the evidence-based Recommendation on smoke- and aerosol-free protection. This forward-thinking initiative will help prevent one in four cancers caused by tobacco use and reduce the burden of cardiovascular diseases