Conclusions from national authority experts on tobacco policy

Subject: Conclusions from national authority experts on tobacco policy

In her answer to Written Question E-001031/2022, Commissioner Stella Kyriakides chose to refer solely to the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks’s conclusions on the issue of harm reduction in tobacco and nicotine policy. In doing so, she thereby ignored a long list of reports from other institutions and authorities, including ‘A Method for Comparing the Impact on Carcinogenicity of Tobacco Products: A Case Study on Heated Tobacco Versus Cigarettes’, published in 2020 by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in the Netherlands.

I would therefore like to ask the following:

1. When drawing on ‘the most robust scientific evidence in establishing a regulatory approach’ on the role of nicotine products, will the Commission include scientific assessments produced by reputable European national authorities, such as the Dutch RIVM or German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, that compare the varying risks associated with the use of different products containing nicotine?

Answer given by Ms Kyriakides on behalf of the European Commission

(19 July 2022)

As the Commission explained in its reply to Written Question E-001031/2022, ‘the Commission is determined to follow up on the most robust scientific evidence in establishing a regulatory approach’ and, for that, it ‘will draw, among others, on the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) scientific opinion on electronic cigarettes’.

It is in this context that the Commission is currently conducting an overarching evaluation of the legislative framework for tobacco control, which is the first step of the review of the Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU (1).

The Commission will evaluate and review the current legislation in line with the better regulation principles. This includes public and targeted consultations, where stakeholders have opportunities to provide evidence and qualitative and quantitative data to support policy-making.

Given the novelty of some tobacco, nicotine and related products and still emerging evidence, especially on medium and long term health effects, the Commission will carefully consider any independent and peer reviewed scientific evidence provided.

⋅1∙ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014L0040 | | ( | | )