The European Parliament has adopted a “historic” EU cancer plan to guide the region’s fight against cancer. Swedish MEP Sara Skyttedal called the vote an “important step” in acknowledging tobacco harm reduction.

The recommendations were included in a report submitted by the parliament’s Special Committee on Beating Cancer (BECA). The measures passed with 652 votes in favour, 15 against, and 27 abstentions.

Among other things, the report identifies smoking as one of the main causes of cancer and calls for the funding of smoking cessation programmes. 

It also states that “electronic cigarettes could allow some smokers to progressively quit smoking”, a clear reference to tobacco harm reduction and the potential of alternative nicotine products to reduce smoking.

“It is an important step in the right direction that the European Parliament recognizes in this report that other nicotine products can play a role in reducing the number of smokers,” Swedish MEP Sara Skyttedal told Snusforumet following the vote.

Skyttedal has previously criticized the European Commission’s failure to recognise the potential for snus and other tobacco harm reduction alternatives. However, she acknowledged the adoption of the EU cancer plan as a “small step towards eventually being able to allow snus on the EU’s internal market”.

EU cancer plan ‘historic’: BECA Rapporteur

Among other things, the report supports the goal of achieving a “tobacco-free generation” by promoting smoking cessation programmes and increasing excise duties for all tobacco products. The report also calls for carrying out more scientific evaluations of the health risks associated with next-generation nicotine products such as e-cigarettes.

“Twelve years after the last European strategy to beat cancer, the one we are presenting today is historic, both in terms of its ambition and its objectives, and in terms of the resources we will provide,” said French MEP and BECA Rapporteur Véronique Trillet-Lenoir.

The plan also called for “strict enforcement” of flavour bans, as well as the need to evaluate and then ban e-cigarettes flavours that are “in particular attractive to minors and non-smokers”.  

That the EU cancer plan also aims to ban all flavours in heated tobacco products and novel tobacco products has raised concerns among some tobacco harm reduction advocates.

Recognising reduced-risk nicotine products

Patrik Strömer, Secretary General of the Association of Swedish Snus Manufacturers, told Snusforumet he would have liked to see a less draconian approach to flavours. However, he acknowledged that the cancer plan’s approach to tobacco and nicotine products was more or less in line with expectations following the work of the BECA committee in 2021.

“Even if this plenary vote is somewhat a formality, it’s encouraging that the European body meant to most closely represent the will of EU citizens has formally recognized there is a difference between cancer-causing cigarettes and reduced-risk nicotine products,” ​​he told Snusforumet. 

“It remains to be seen, however, if the results amount to anything more than ambitions.”

The European Commission presented its comprehensive Beating Cancer Plan in early 2021, calling for €4bn in spending to improve prevention, treatment, and care.

One of the plan’s main priorities is to “ensure that less than 5% of the population uses tobacco by 2040”. The plan’s focus on reducing tobacco use rather than on reducing the harm caused by tobacco left many harm reduction advocates frustrated.

In December the BECA committee approved a slew of amendments to the plan that were included in the final report that has now been adopted by the European Parliament.