A leaked European Union draft position for next month’s WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) meeting reveals a sweeping push to extend tobacco-style restrictions, and even possible bans, to all non-smoked nicotine products, including vaping devices, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches.
The document, dated 7 October 2025 and marked LIMITE, outlines the EU’s position ahead of COP11 in Geneva (17–22 November). It shows Brussels preparing to take an explicitly hostile stance toward harm reduction, describing it as an “industry narrative” and encouraging governments to regulate or prohibit these products.
TL;DR — What the Leaked Document Shows
- The EU proposes to treat all nicotine products, including those without tobacco, as part of the same public health threat.
- It urges “strong regulation or potential bans” on vaping products, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco.
- It dismisses harm reduction as an industry strategy, not a legitimate public health approach.
- Environmental and flavour regulations are framed in ways that would eliminate entire product categories.
- Critics warn the approach could entrench cigarette use and undermine Europe’s smoke-free goals.
Turning the Clock Back on Tobacco Policy
The leaked text makes clear that the EU sees “novel and emerging nicotine and tobacco products” as a gateway to addiction, not an exit from smoking. It urges countries to monitor these products closely, restrict marketing, and, where appropriate, prohibit their sale altogether.
Under Agenda Item 4.5, the EU calls for measures “to protect in particular children and adolescents,” explicitly mentioning possible bans on electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), electronic non-nicotine systems (ENNDS), and nicotine pouches.
That language marks a decisive shift away from Europe’s previous openness to harm reduction. Just a few years ago, the EU’s own Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) acknowledged that non-smoked products could reduce risk for adult smokers if appropriately regulated. The leaked draft, however, reverts to a prohibitionist tone, equating all nicotine use with tobacco smoking.
A Policy That Protects Cigarettes
Europe’s toughest rhetoric is now aimed not at the cigarette, but at its alternatives. The draft recommends that flavour bans, packaging rules, and environmental restrictions be extended to vaping, pouches and heated tobacco products. It even suggests that non-nicotine items could fall within future FCTC measures.
The stated goal is youth protection and environmental health. But in practice, such measures could remove lower-risk products from the market while leaving cigarettes, the most lethal form of nicotine use, widely available.
Public health experts have warned that when safer options are restricted or banned, smokers are pushed back toward combustible products. The leaked document makes no reference to this unintended consequence.
A Blind Spot in the Fight Against Harm
The EU’s approach conflates harm reduction with industry interference, a move that risks silencing independent researchers and consumer advocates who have long argued for differentiated regulation based on relative risk.
It also overlooks real-world data. Sweden, where snus and nicotine pouches are legal, now has the lowest smoking rate in the EU, under 5%, a threshold the WHO itself defines as “smoke-free.” By contrast, smoking remains stubbornly high in countries that have restricted vaping or banned pouches altogether.
The Bigger Picture
The leaked EU position fits a growing global trend at the WHO level: to fold all nicotine products into the same regulatory basket, regardless of their risk profile. This may make for bureaucratic simplicity, but it runs counter to both scientific evidence and ethical pragmatism.
Cigarettes remain the leading cause of preventable death worldwide, killing over 8 million people annually. Every policy that suppresses innovation in safer alternatives, intentionally or not, helps keep that number high.
If Europe truly wants to lead the world in tobacco control, it must find the courage to separate combustion from consumption, and evidence from ideology.
