Top Takeaways:

• EU finance ministers discuss raising tobacco and vape taxes under new directive.
• Proposal would expand excise scope to include e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, and nicotine pouches.
• Sweden vows to block higher taxes on snus, calling proposal unfair.

European Union Tax Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said e-cigarettes are “the tobacco industry’s revenge” against public-health gains, as finance ministers met Friday in Luxembourg to discuss raising tobacco taxes and extending EU excise rules to next-generation products.

The proposal, first unveiled by the European Commission on July 16, would update the bloc’s 2014 Tobacco Excise Directive to cover e-cigarettes, heated-tobacco products, and nicotine pouches, according to media reports. It aims to harmonize minimum tax rates across member states, narrow price gaps to reduce cross-border sales, and recover an estimated €13 billion in annual lost tax revenue.

“Europe has a serious problem when it comes to tobacco,” Hoekstra said before the meeting. “Tobacco kills one in two Europeans today. Particularly e-cigarettes are a huge problem. They target young people and make them susceptible to tobacco products.”

The Commission says expanding the directive’s scope is overdue as next-generation products continue to grow rapidly across Europe. “The scope we have in the legislation today is too limited, so we need to expand it,” Hoekstra said.

Denmark’s Finance Minister Stephanie Lose, whose government holds the rotating EU presidency, welcomed the start of discussions. “It is good to get the proposal on the table,” she said. “It is important that we get a revision of the directive.”

But not all member states agree. Sweden’s Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said the proposal unfairly targets snus, a legal oral tobacco product in Sweden that is banned elsewhere in the EU. “Some of my colleagues think that snus is more dangerous than cigarettes. I have to explain that this is not the case,” Svantesson said. “In Sweden, we tax based on the degree of danger. Therefore, we tax cigarettes more than snus. The increase the EU proposes on snus will not happen.”

The measure, if adopted, would mark the EU’s most extensive nicotine tax reform in more than a decade and could significantly raise retail prices on vaping and tobacco-free nicotine products throughout the single market.