Big Tobacco Spends Up to €10 Million a Year Lobbying the EU

The tobacco industry has sharply increased its lobbying of European Union institutions as Brussels prepares to overhaul the rules governing how cigarettes, vapes and nicotine pouches are taxed and sold, according to an investigation by Euronews.

The sector now spends an estimated €8 million to €10 million a year on direct lobbying of EU institutions and employs more than 100 registered lobbyists in Brussels, a figure that does not include the PR firms, law firms, consultancies and industry-linked think tanks that also work on its behalf, Euronews found.

Rising access, uneven playing field

Data from Transparency International’s Integrity Watch database shows meetings between tobacco representatives and members of the European Parliament climbed 57% between an earlier baseline and June 2026, from an average of 14.7 a month to 23. During one key legislative period, public health NGOs managed just 12 meetings with influential MEPs while Philip Morris International alone held 121.

“If we look specifically at the top 20 of where the tobacco industry is really lobbying, we find virtually no NGOs. So, they definitely have more access,” said Raphaël Kergueno, senior policy officer at Transparency International EU.

That imbalance came into sharp focus on 17 June, when the European Parliament rejected the revised Tobacco Taxation Directive by 439 votes to 181. Lawmakers judged the final text too contradictory, in part because of the so-called ‘Kubín report’, a legislative draft accused of embedding industry arguments, including proposals for sharply reduced minimum tax rates on vapes and nicotine pouches.

The Commission’s own proposal for the directive, published in July 2025, sought a roughly 139% increase in minimum excise duty on standard cigarettes and, for the first time, would tax vapes, heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches. The EU is separately revising the Tobacco Products Directive and the Tobacco Advertising Directive, with a public consultation on that overhaul closing in mid-August 2026.

Undisclosed meetings with Philip Morris

Separate investigations by Contre-Feu, STOP and The Examination, working with POLITICO, uncovered undisclosed meetings and communications between EU officials, including at the European Commission’s trade department, and Philip Morris International. A December 2025 report by STOP and Contre-Feu documented 49 organisations linked to the tobacco industry lobbying EU rule-makers, spending roughly €14 million a year combined and holding 257 meetings with Parliament members between 2023 and 2025. Over the same period, the Commission declared only five meetings with the tobacco industry.

The Examination and POLITICO also reported that Philip Morris International lobbied EU officials to help weaken tobacco and nicotine-product regulations in non-EU countries, including restrictions on its IQOS heated-tobacco device, and that Commission officials in some cases acted on these requests.

“It is outrageous that the European Commission is secretly negotiating with the tobacco industry,” said Daniel Freund, an MEP with the Greens.

Fellow Greens MEP Tilly Metz said the pattern “undermines both public trust and the EU’s credibility as a global leader in tobacco control,” while Renew Europe’s Barry Andrews said the contacts “should not have happened.” Not all MEPs agree the industry is doing anything improper: Renew’s Stine Bosse noted that “the tobacco industry has every right to employ lobbyists.” Following the revelations, Parliament used its budget-oversight ‘discharge’ procedure to press the Commission for an explanation. A PMI spokesperson said the company, “like any highly regulated, multi-national company,” regularly seeks to share its positions with policymakers.

What’s at stake

The EU tobacco market remains dominated by a handful of firms, Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Brands, whose products span traditional cigarettes and the fast-growing categories of vapes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches now being drawn into the tax and product rules under revision. The outcome will shape whether the bloc can meet the target set out in its 2021 Beating Cancer Plan: a ‘tobacco-free generation’, defined as tobacco use falling below 5%, by 2040.

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