Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister and former Health Minister Franck Vandenbroucke will host a livestreamed seminar on novel nicotine products, with a focus on vaping, during the WHO’s biannual conference on tobacco control in November.
According to documents seen by Clearing the Air and corroborated by sources, the veteran Socialist politician will invite Ministers from around the world to join the livestream. It is unclear what role, if any, consumers or the wider public will have.
Vandenbroucke has previously called vaping “an unhealthy and dangerous product that must be eliminated from the world”.
Stagnating smoking rates
Despite some of the strongest tobacco control measures in Europe – such as requiring plain packaging for cigarettes and comprehensive indoor smoking bans – the smoking rate in Belgium has stagnated at around 21%, according to Europbarometer.
The country’s public health watchdog Sciensano said in 2023 that the country would fail to achieve its smoking reduction targets without new policies.
But the only new policies implemented since then have been unrelated to cigarettes: nicotine pouches were banned in 2023 and disposable vapes in 2025. There is no evidence that banning products that are not cigarettes are effective in reducing cigarette consumption.
A thriving black market
What the new laws have done is create a thriving black market for both products. A recent survey found that around 40% of shops continue to sell disposables despite the nationwide ban.
A separate investigation by the Brussels Times found that pouches also remain widely available a year after the ban was implemented.
“Every shop has them, they just put them in there,” one shopkeeper told the Brussels Times, while pointing to a bottom shelf behind the counter.
“We’re fed up with being stigmatized: we’re ex-smokers, not criminals” said Dany MIchel of Belgian consumer group FeBeVa. “Vaping has gotten us off tobacco, we’re better. Ministers should make decisions based on risk factors, not ideology”
