New Tobacco Control Scale reveals Europe going backwards on tobacco control amid resistance to stronger EU tax reform
Tuesday, 26 May 2026
Today the Smoke Free Partnership (SFP) launches the Tobacco Control Scale (TCS) 2025, the most comprehensive country-by-country benchmark of tobacco control policy across 37 European nations.
First introduced 20 years ago by Luk Joossens and Martin Raw in 2006 the latest report delivers a stark and historic verdict: for the first time since the Scale was created, more countries have gone backwards than forwards, and the countries driving this regression are the same Member States now obstructing meaningful reform of the EU Tobacco Taxation Directive (TTD).
Read the full report and the press release below.