The European Parliament's public health committee has voted to pull nicotine pouches into a much stricter EU rulebook — plain packaging, flavour restrictions, ingredient reporting and tougher checks on online sales. It is not law yet, but it is the clearest signal yet of what the upcoming Tobacco Products Directive revision could mean for the category.

What happened

On 28 September, the Committee on Public Health (SANT) adopted its report on the implementation of Europe's Beating Cancer Plan by 27 votes to 8, with 5 abstentions. The report, an own-initiative text led by Romanian Renew MEP Vlad Vasile-Voiculescu, calls for the EU's tobacco legislation to be updated "urgently" so it covers newer nicotine categories that sit partly or entirely outside the current Tobacco Products Directive — nicotine pouches named explicitly, alongside e-cigarettes and heated tobacco.

According to the Parliament's summary of the vote and Eunews reporting on the resolution, MEPs want the next round of EU tobacco legislation to include:

• plain-packaging requirements
• restrictions on flavours considered attractive to younger consumers
• mandatory ingredient reporting
• stronger age verification for online sales
• higher minimum excise duties across tobacco and nicotine products

MEP Tilly Metz (Greens) went further, calling for harmonised taxation, marketing, age limits and flavours — and saying she would favour an EU ban on high-strength pouches. Rapporteur Voiculescu acknowledged that risk differentiation has a legitimate role in helping smokers quit, while arguing it should not justify policies that recruit a new generation of nicotine users.

Why it matters

Pouches are currently regulated country by country in the EU: some states allow them under general product rules, some cap nicotine or restrict flavours, and some ban them outright. The European Commission's own TPD evaluation flagged that patchwork as a single-market problem — and the SANT vote puts Parliament's health committee firmly on record that pouches should be inside the next EU framework.

The harder question is what that framework looks like. A light-touch harmonisation package would set age limits, ingredient notification and standard warnings. The committee's report leans toward the aggressive version — flavours, strength, packaging and retail channels all in scope.

Two limits to keep in mind. First, this is an own-initiative report: it sets out what Parliament wants, but imposes nothing on its own. The indicative plenary vote is listed for 11 November, and the actual product rules would still have to come through separate Commission legislation. Second, the tax piece runs on a separate track — the revised Tobacco Taxation Directive needs unanimous agreement from all 27 member states, and Sweden helped block a Council compromise over the summer over how pouches would be treated. That deadlock is unchanged.

What's next

Watch the plenary vote in November.

The member-state side is moving in the same direction at the same time: eight EU health ministers, led by the Netherlands, have asked the Commission for a "market freeze" on all new nicotine products — including pouches, which the letter calls a circumvention of the EU snus ban. See Eight EU countries just asked Brussels to freeze the nicotine pouch market. If the full Parliament adopts the committee's position, the pressure on the Commission to propose a pouch-inclusive TPD revision — with flavour and strength limits on the table — gets substantially harder to ignore.

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SOURCES:

• Fighting cancer: stricter rules, equal access to treatment — European Parliament press release, 28 Sep 2026
• Food, alcohol, and tobacco: the EU Parliament's crackdown — Eunews, 28 Sep 2026
• Urgent action needed: Europe risks missing key cancer targets — Renew Europe, 28 Sep 2026