Yesterday, the European Commission recommended a revision of the Council Recommendation on smoke-free environments to better protect people from the effects of second-hand smoke and aerosols.  

The current Council Recommendation (2009/C 296/02) gives guidance to Member States on complying with their legal commitments to protect people from second-hand smoke from traditional tobacco products in indoor workplaces, public transport, and indoor public places. The proposed revision of the Council Recommendation includes an extension of this to outdoor spaces and to emerging products that may emit smoke and/or aerosols, such as heated tobacco products, electronic cigarettes (with nicotine or nicotine-free), and tobacco surrogates. 

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) actively contributed to the proposed revision of the Council Recommendation, supporting DG SANTE by analysing data from the Member States on their current smoke- and aerosol-free environments legislation. In line with the revised Council Recommendation, the focus of this analysis was on the inclusion of emerging products and outdoor environments in Member States’ current legislation.  

Previously, the European Commission’s Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Knowledge Gateway has published a brief on Tobacco and Smoking. Both active and passive smoking have harmful effects on health and may cause cancer (IARC 1986; IARC 2004; IARC 1985; IARC 2007). While cigarette smoking is estimated to cause 82% of lung cancer cases in Europe (EC/IARC 2015), exposure to second-hand smoke has also been established to cause lung cancer (IARC 2004). Furthermore, passive smoking has been linked to cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, middle ear disease, reproductive and neonatal conditions, as well as infectious disease (see “Effects of passive smoking on health” for more details). 

In 2023, 24% of people in the EU were current smokers (28% of men and 21% of women) and 20% were ex-smokers. Wide differences exist between EU Member States in their prevalence of smoking habits; the prevalence of smoking varies between 8 and 37%, and that of being an ex-smoker between 8 and 36% (Special Eurobarometer 539, 2024). In most EU Member States, smoking rates are much higher in low socioeconomic status groups compared to high socioeconomic status; smoking is more frequent among people with lower education and less income (WHO 2019).

The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study estimated that, in the EU, tobacco use (including tobacco smoking, tobacco chewing and exposure to second hand smoke) accounted for over 530 000 deaths and almost 14 million Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) in 2021; most of this burden is caused by active tobacco smoking. Second-hand smoking, in turn, accounted for over 53 000 deaths and over 1.2 million DALYs. It was estimated that chewing tobacco accounted for 266 deaths and 6 100 DALYs in the EU during 2021 (GBD tool). 

The global economic cost of smoking-attributable diseases in 2012 (Goodchild et al. 2018) was estimated at purchasing power parity (PPP) $1 852 billion, equivalent to 1.8% of the world’s annual gross domestic product (GDP). In 2009, tobacco smoking cost €544 billion the EU (EU/DG SANCO 2012), which is about 4.6% of the EU27 combined GDP.

The JRC will continue to collaborate with DG SANTE on tobacco legislation work, including on emerging products.