The European Chronic Disease Alliance (ECDA) welcomes the evaluation of the tobacco control policies covering product regulation, advertising, promotion and sponsorship; including current legislation (such as the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), Tobacco Tax Directive).

Despite advances in the past decades, much remains to be achieved to realise a ‘tobacco-free generation’, as per the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.

Alignment with UN and WHO tobacco reduction targets is essential, but the EU should firmly strive for reaching the ambition of less than 5% of the EU population using tobacco by 2040. This would be a major achievement for public health across Europe and would save the lives of millions of Europeans, considering that tobacco use is the cause of around one fourth of all cancers and a major risk factor for all other main chronic diseases.

ECDA recommendations in the context of the EU consultation can be found here.