Paul Varakas, Director General of the ECMA (www.ecma.eu), will now be keeping you up to date here every month and showing you what you can do in your respective EU countries to take active action against the increasingly stringent laws against cigar smoking.
United Kingdom
Strong push back this week in the House of Lords where several Peers raided objections to include cigars within the scope of the generational ban – Let’s make sure MPs in the House of Commons hear these concerns: take part in the campaign to contact your local MP – https://savecigars.co.uk
Netherlands
The EU Commission found that the draft decree extending plain packaging to cigars was in breach of EU law – preventing the Dutch government from adopting it before February 2026. Let’s make sure this additional time is used to contact newly elected Members of the Dutch Parliament – https://www.houseofrepresentatives.nl/members_of_parliament/members_of_parliament
Belgium
Here we go again! While the cigar industry is fighting plain packaging in courts, the Belgian government intends to ban smoking around terraces as well as smoking
rooms, cigar lounges and more places in Belgium. The text will soon be discussed in Parliament and we hope to see the cigar community raise its voices by signing this petition: https://dekamer.mijnopinie.belgium.be/initiatives/i-1195
