France wants to stop snus crossing EU borders — and it's ready to veto the tax deal
France is demanding the EU remove the private-carriage rule that lets people take snus across member-state borders, and says it will block the tax directive without it. Snusarnas Riksförbund warns Swedish jobs and Finland's cross-border supply are on the line.
France is pushing to strip out the EU rule that lets private people carry tobacco — including snus — across member-state borders for their own use, even above national limits. And because EU tax files need every country to agree, Paris says it is ready to block the whole deal if it doesn't get its way.
That warning comes from Snusarnas Riksförbund, the Swedish snus users' association, which flagged the French demand on 5 October after Euractiv reported it from the ongoing negotiations over the EU's new Tobacco Taxation Directive.
What happened
In the talks over the revised directive, France wants to delete a clause that currently allows private individuals to bring tobacco between EU countries for personal use — even in amounts larger than the national standard limits. According to Euractiv, citing several EU diplomats, France is prepared to stop an agreement entirely unless its demand goes through.
Ireland, which holds the rotating Council presidency, is consulting individual member states ahead of the next round of talks, with the political aim of landing a deal in November. France's own position is blunt: "A no-deal is better than a bad deal for Paris," one EU diplomat told Euractiv.
Why it matters for snus users
Snusarnas Riksförbund says the change would hit three groups:
- Finnish snus users. Finland is home to hundreds of thousands of snus users, but snus cannot be sold there. The practical supply route is buying in Sweden and bringing it home — exactly the behaviour the French demand targets.
- Swedish shops and jobs. The association points to stores along the Finnish border and Swedish snus factories as the ones that would feel the lost sales.
- Travelling snus users generally. The association is also warning that Swedes could find it harder to travel in Europe with snus at all, arguing that free movement should not stop at snus users.
Because taxation decisions in the EU require unanimity, France can hold up the directive on its own — which is precisely what it is threatening to do.
What's next
This is the same stalled file that was already pushed to November after Sweden blocked an earlier attempt to tax nicotine pouches. The cross-border carriage demand is a new red line on top of it. Watch whether the November negotiations keep the private-carriage clause: if it goes, buying snus in Sweden and bringing it across a border stops being a routine errand and becomes a legal grey zone in much of the EU.
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