If policymakers are serious about reducing smoking and improving public health, they need to recognise a basic truth: raising taxes without enforcing the law is a losing strategy.
The European Union says it wants to reduce smoking. That’s a commendable goal. But its current plan to raise taxes on tobacco and nicotine products might end up doing more harm than good.
By revising the Tobacco Excise Directive (TED), Brussels hopes to cut smoking rates by making cigarettes, vapes, and other products more expensive. But this approach has already failed in several member states, most clearly in France and the Netherlands. Instead of helping people quit, high taxes there have created one of Europe’s biggest black markets for tobacco.
Nearly 30 per cent of cigarettes smoked in France are illegal, sold outside the tax system, often smuggled in from abroad, and sometimes even counterfeit. That’s about 15 billion cigarettes every year in France alone, not including other countries like the Netherlands which more recently hiked their own tobacco taxes.
The black market wins
This doesn’t just threaten public health. It drains billions of euros from government budgets and strengthens criminal networks which operate across Europe. Now the EU risks repeating this mistake on a much larger scale by forcibly imposing the failed French and Dutch policy on all member states through the TED.
Bizarrely, it is Dutch commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, ostensibly in charge of the climate portfolio, who holds the cards on this decision. Hoekstra has been a vociferous anti-vaping campaigner, coming under fire for spreading misinformation which may ironically lead to more people smoking, because scaremongering dissuades them from switching to vaping as a healthier option.
Might Hoekstra hope to draw focus away from his own government’s mistake in unleashing a tobacco black market by dragging the rest of the EU down onto that same sinking ship?
Recent research by the firm Povaddo shows citizens are fully aware of the problem. In France, for example, 83 per cent believe that excessive tobacco taxes push people toward the black market. Some 78 per cent say the illicit trade in tobacco products is a threat to public health and public safety. No doubt the situation is similar in the Netherlands.
Yet despite this clear message, the EU is moving ahead with blanket tax hikes that ignore what’s happening on the ground.
If policymakers are serious about reducing smoking and improving public health, they need to recognise a basic truth: raising taxes without enforcing the law is a losing strategy. The higher the price of legal products, the more people turn to illegal ones. If borders are weak and law enforcement is under-resourced, the black market wins.
Enforcement
The EU should drop its current plan to increase tobacco taxes and instead focus on what works: enforcement. Specifically, the EU should establish a centralised anti-smuggling task force, coordinating customs, border control, and national tax agencies, to dismantle the illicit tobacco networks which thrive under high-tax regimes.
This kind of cooperation already exists in other areas like drug trafficking and counter-terrorism. But the illegal tobacco trade still lacks this level of coordination. That’s a serious gap. Illicit tobacco doesn’t just hurt public finances. It often travels along the same routes used for other illegal goods, including weapons, drugs, and even human trafficking. Tackling it would have broader security benefits across the EU.
This taskforce should operate across borders and share real-time intelligence. It should target the organised crime groups behind large-scale smuggling operations. And it should work closely with national governments to improve enforcement capacity where it is weakest.
At the same time, the EU should invest in public education and harm reduction. The Povaddo survey found most people in France have little or no knowledge about smoke-free alternatives like vapes or heated tobacco. In fact, only 14 per cent said they were familiar with heated tobacco products.
That’s a huge missed opportunity. These alternatives are not risk-free, but they are far less harmful than traditional cigarettes. Making people aware of them—and ensuring they are available and affordable—can help reduce smoking rates without punishing smokers through higher taxes.
Most importantly, these alternatives are legal, regulated, and taxed. When smokers switch to them, governments still collect revenue, and consumers stay away from dangerous, unregulated products on the black market.
Facing the facts
This isn’t about helping tobacco companies. It’s about helping people—especially those who are trying to quit but can’t, or who live in areas where illicit cigarettes are easier to find than legal ones. Raising taxes again, without giving smokers better options or cracking down on the illegal trade, is not just ineffective. It’s irresponsible.
The EU has a choice. It can continue down the same path as France and the Netherlands, with high taxes which enrich smugglers and frustrate public health goals. Or it can take a smarter, evidence-based approach: fight the black market, support harm reduction, and treat smokers as part of the solution, not the problem.
Before introducing any new taxes, Brussels must face the facts. If it truly wants to reduce smoking and protect public health, it should scrap the tax hike—and build the enforcement tools needed to stop the illegal trade once and for all.
Photo: Dreamstime.
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