Products Regulation

In the European Union, extensive tobacco control measures regulate the production, trade, packaging and advertising of tobacco products. Specifically, the Tobacco Products Directive (Directive 2014/40/EU) lays  down rules governing the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco and related products, including cigars and cigarillos. 

Considering the EU legislation’s focus preventing young people from tobacco addictive behaviour, cigars and cigarillos, have been granted exemptions from certain requirements relating to ingredients, flavours, labelling and reporting, as products mainly consumed by mature and conscious consumers representing small groups of the population (1). This fact has once again recently been confirmed in the European Commission’s Support Study to the report on the application of Directive 2014/40/EU, which found practically no use of cigars and cigarillos in the under-25 age group in the EU (2).

This approach is widely understood and shared across the globe – from the exclusion of cigars to the US Food and Drug Administration’s Final Deeming Rule (3) to the labelling exemption granted for cigars and cigarillos in the vast majority of EU countries which have implemented plain packaging for cigarettes. 

In the absence of clear change of circumstances in terms of sales volumes or consumption patterns of young people, as recently confirmed by the European Commission in May 2021 (4), ECMA firmly believes that cigars and cigarillos should continue to be treated differently from mass-consumed tobacco and nicotine products. 

As the European Commission recently launched a public consultation on the Evaluation of the Legislative Framework for Tobacco Control, ECMA is publishing a Guide to submit to the consultation here.