Press Release

The Department of Health today, Friday, 16th October 2015, commenced a public consultation on transposition of the revised European Tobacco Products Directive (2014/40/EU).

The aim of the Directive is to harmonise laws on tobacco products and electronic cigarettes, to facilitate the smooth functioning of the internal market while assuring a high level of public health protection.

Areas regulated by the Directive include labelling and packaging, ingredients and emissions, traceability and security features and cross border distance sales.

The mandatory requirements of the Directive must be transposed by Member States into their national legislation by May 2016.  Within a number of those mandatory requirements Member States may determine certain discretionary elements.  The consultation focuses on those discretionary elements.

Details of the consultation and a link to the online questionnaire are available on the Department’s website here.  The online questionnaire will remain open until 5pm on Wednesday, 18th November 2015