Eight EU Capitals Want to Ban Products That Don’t Exist Yet

Friday 16 October, 2026 Brussels, Belgium (October 16, 2026) — We Are Innovation is urging the European Commission to reject calls for a “market freeze” on new nicotine products in the upcoming revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). The network warns that the proposal contradicts the competitiveness agenda the EU adopted after the Draghi report. On 6 October, the health ministers of the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, France, Hungary, Latvia, Slovenia and Spain jointly asked the Commission to include a market freeze in the revised Directive. The proposal would bar any new product containing nicotine, anything with nicotine-like properties, or anything that resembles them from entering the EU market. The ministers also call for a ban on flavorings, caps on nicotine content, and standardized designs across all categories. They justify these measures as a way to prevent consumers from substituting one product for another. We Are Innovation argues that the proposal tests whether the EU has absorbed the lessons of The Future of European Competitiveness, the 2024 report by Mario Draghi. The report found that EU companies invest roughly half as much in research and innovation, a

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