Tobacco, Regulation, and the Future of Choice in Europe

The European tobacco industry stands at a crossroads. On the one hand, it continues to provide governments with a stable and predictable revenue stream—second only to income tax in Germany, and accounting for up to 5 per cent of annual budgets in countries such as Romania and Poland. On the other, the industry faces mounting political exclusion, regulatory mistrust, and a growing push for prohibitionist approaches that risk undermining both innovation and consumer choice.

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Possible Change Means Relief in the Essential Oil Business

A new red-tape mission is about to worsen the lives of Eastern European consumers, producers, and suppliers. Under the influence of the Green Deal, the European Union’s Chemical Agency (ECHA) will transition to a hazard-based approachpremised on preventing any potential threat. Regulators will no longer focus on concrete exposure levels to determine whether a product is safe for consumers, as they used to in the older risk-oriented assessments. Instead, policymakers will use lab-related hypothetical scenarios or advanced statistical tests to label a consumer good as dangerous or remove it entirely from store shelves if it could constitute a problem in any way, shape, or form.

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