Sweden’s finance minister says leaked plans to fund the next EU budget with a tobacco tax hike are “completely unacceptable” and vowed to continue her fight for Swedish snus.

Elisabeth Svantesson, Sweden’s finance minister and member of the centre-right Moderate Party, took to X to express her outrage over plans described in a leaked German government document suggesting the next EU budget could be funded by new taxes on tobacco and electronic waste.

“The proposal that’s circulating is completely unacceptable to the Swedish government,” she wrote in a post on X.

“When the European Commission submits its proposal, I will continue to fight for Swedish snus.”

Tax revenue belongs to Sweden, not the EU

In her comments on X, Svantesson emphasized the importance of member states maintaining the ability to tax tobacco and nicotine products according to their relative harm.

She also pushed back against the possibility of increased tax revenues from “white snus” – the common Swedish term for nicotine pouches – going to the EU rather than benefiting Sweden.

“It goes without saying that the tax revenue should benefit Sweden and not go to EU bureaucracy,” she wrote in the same thread.

New ‘own resources’ from tobacco to fund budget

Svantesson’s comments come in response to reports that the European Commission is mulling an increase in taxes on tobacco as a new revenue stream to fund the EU budget.

The plans appear in a line in a document originating with Germany’s International Affairs Liaison Office in Brussel, meant for the German parliament.

“New sources of own resources may also be explored, such as levies on electronic waste or tobacco,” the document reads.

According to Euractiv, which first reported on the document, “own resources” refers to primary revenue sources used to fund the EU budget, which is currently funded primarily by EU member states.

Sweden: A tobacco harm reduction leader 

Last month, it emerged that the European Commission’s proposed revisions to the Tobacco Excise Tax Directive (TED) would hike levies on nicotine pouches in Sweden by 650 percent, prompting pushback from Swedish MEPs and consumer groups.

In addition to Sweden, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, and Romania have also expressed opposition to the TED revisions. 

While moist tobacco snus has been banned in the EU since 1992, Sweden has had an exemption from the ban, offering consumers in Sweden a less-harmful smoke-free alternative to deadly cigarettes. 

Today, Sweden has the lowest daily smoking rate in the EU – around 5 percent – compared with an EU average of around 20 percent. The availability of snus – and more recently, nicotine pouches – is seen as a key component in Sweden’s success as a model for tobacco harm reduction.