There’s nothing more annoying than writing an article that confidently states “either this thing will happen or that thing will happen”, only for something completely different to actually occur. But that is the position I found myself in on Wednesday afternoon.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament rejected an opinion, prepared by a committee of MEPs, which called for lower tax rates on all nicotine products (the deadly ones and the safer ones alike) and a recognition of the fact that different nicotine products have different risk profiles.
Many (including me) confidently asserted that this would mean the proposal would be referred back to the Committee, where statements on relative risk would be stripped out. What actually happened was that MEPs signed up to a statement that called for the Commission to withdraw its proposal on nicotine taxes altogether. A potential outcome so bizarre I had even considered.
This gets a bit geeky, so I’ll breeze through it. First, MEPs voted on the Committee’s report (the one with the relative risk recognition in it). That fell by 12 votes.
The 21 member Swedish delegation voted against it, not because they don’t believe in relative risk (see our interview with Charlie Weimers MEP for more on that), but because proposed taxes on nicotine pouches are higher than Sweden is willing to put up with and there is a national election there in a few months. No party wants to be cast by their opponents as backers on high nicotine pouch taxes in an election year.
Subtract the Swedish elections and this report – which isn’t binding on anyone – probably passes.
There are then a few votes on some minor amendments. Some pass, some don’t, but the net effect of it all is that the proposal that MEPs vote on at the end largely resembles the European Commission’s (terrible) original proposal.
MEPs then reject the Commission’s proposal without referring the issue back to the Committee, meaning the default outcome is calling for the proposal to be withdrawn.
There are varying reports as to why.
The person I trust most on Parliamentary procedure is certain that the Socialist Group messed up and as a result, members thought they were voting on the Committee report (which they do not support) and not the Commission proposal (which they do). The Socialists, for their part, told me (indirectly) that some of the amendments that passed made it impossible for them to vote yes.
They have since doubled down on this in a press release, using the moment to bash the centre right EPP for voting with those further to the right in the chamber. That seems to be their political strategy for the term anyway: lose, then blame it on people they like to call fascists.
I have no idea what the truth of it is, and it doesn’t really matter.
Look beyond the result and we now know that we have a plurality of Members of the European Parliament who will vote for a report supporting the idea that some nicotine products are less harmful than others. 309 did last week, a further 21 are Swedish and agree on harm reduction across the board, and the French National Rally (a further 30 members) abstained because taxes on vapes in the Committee report were too high for their liking and they also have elections coming up. Their most likely Presidential candidate, Jordan Bardella, leads their group in the European Parliament (although I’m told he rarely shows up).
That gets you to 360 MEPs who did, or would, vote for harm reduction. For an absolute majority (i.e. half of all sitting MEPs), you need 361, and in reality all 720 never show up at once for a vote.
This is all that really matters. No-one cares whether the Parliament does or does not actually want the European Commission to withdraw its proposal on nicotine tax. It’s a non-binding opinion that would have been ignored by Member States (who have to make the decision by unanimity) whatever it said.
But we should care that we have aParliamentary majority in favour of harm reduction. That matters, and it might be the only thing that stands in the way of sweeping products bans when the EU revises its nicotine product rulebook at the end of this year.
