Smoke and mirrors

Weak EU transparency rules allow tobacco industry lobbyists to dodge scrutiny

02.07.2020

Given the upcoming revision of the Tobacco Products Directive, it is high time that the EU meets its obligations to ensure that lobbying by the tobacco industry to influence public officials faces tighter scrutiny and pro-active transparency.

As the European Union prepares for a review and possible revision of its Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), to start in 2021, lobbying by the tobacco industry to avoid stricter controls is going to intensify. The previous revision of the TPD (finalised in 2014) featured a scandal-ridden lobbying battle, which included the resignation of Health Commissioner Dalli, and the tobacco industry investing millions of euros in often very manipulative influencing strategies. An analysis of hundreds of documents received via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests shows that the European Commission is badly prepared for this upcoming lobbying battle. Despite having signed on to the UN’s tobacco control treaty (UNFCTC) that obliges governments to protect public health decision-making from tobacco industry influence, the Commission fails to properly implement these obligations.

Article 5.3 of the UNFCTC (and its accompanying guidelines) instruct governments to avoid tobacco industry influence by reducing contacts to a minimum (limited to only those contacts that are strictly necessary to regulate the sector and its products) as well as securing full transparency of any such contacts. These rules were introduced because of the tobacco industry’s multi-decade record of manipulating science and political decision-making in order to avoid restrictions on the sales of their deadly products.

Indeed, in 2016 the European Ombudsman concluded: “the Commission’s refusal to publish online details of all meetings which its services and its staff have with the tobacco industry constitutes maladministration”. The Ombudsman asked the Commission for a “proactive transparency policy regarding meetings with tobacco lobbyists”, across all Commission services and staff. This, the Ombudsman stressed, is what’s required to comply with transparency obligations in the WHO’s tobacco treaty (UNFCTC). The Commission, however, stubbornly refused to follow the Ombudsman’s recommendations. It claimed that its Transparency Register, its online transparency around the lobby meetings of a limited number of top-officials, and the possibility to request access to documents via freedom-of-information (FOI) law is sufficient. This stance has been repeated at numerous occasions since then, for instance in a response to a parliamentary question this spring. However, Corporate Europe Observatory’s investigation, launched in February 2018, shows this is insufficient: the tobacco meetings disclosed online are only a tiny tip of the iceberg and – as we discovered – using FOI to get a fuller overview is unworkable. (See tables below for more on disclosed versus undisclosed meetings.)

Tip of the iceberg

The Commission pro-actively discloses the lobby meetings of European Commissioners, their cabinets and the directors-general (approximately top-300 Commission officials). These meetings are spread across European Commission websites, but can be searched via the NGO platforms integritywatch.eu and lobbyfacts.eu. SidenoteLobbyfacts.eu is a joint project of Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl. These searches reveal that the top of the Commission since 2017 has had seven lobby meetings with tobacco industry lobbyists; all with tobacco giants Philip Morris International (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT), as well as a consultancy representing BAT. But this is only the tip of the iceberg: far more lobbying contacts happen with Commission officials just below the top level, and the majority of these meetings are not listed.

At least the Commission’s health department (DG Sante, which takes the lead on tobacco control) has a policy of publishing its meetings with the tobacco industry on its website, with links to extensive minutes from the meetings. These meetings are often organised as stakeholder workshops, with NGOs present as well, rather than industry-only. DG Sante lists 25 meetings with the tobacco industry since 2017 (many of which are part of country visits to different member states), as well as three meetings with other industry groups. So far, so transparent. But the 30+ other Commission departments (DGs) do not follow this pro-active transparency approach, so their meetings with the tobacco industry remain below the radar.

In order to get a fuller overview of EU tobacco lobbying efforts across the European Commission, Corporate Europe Observatory submitted three sets of freedom of information requests (in February 2018, December 2018 and December 2019), asking for all contacts between the Commission and the tobacco industry since January 2017 (correspondence and notes from meetings). The FOI requests were submitted via Asktheeu.org.

Both access to documents requests became complex and slow affairs. Rather than administrating the requests centrally, the Commission’s Secretariat-General split the requests into seven to eight different ones covering specific departments. Documents were often released only after major delays and significant efforts from our side in the form of reminders and appeals. Using freedom of information requests to achieve transparency around tobacco industry lobbying proved extremely burdensome and our conclusion is clear: it is simply not a workable option.

Our efforts did result in hundreds of documents being released, most of which are now available online on the Asktheeu.org website (see February 2018 request, December 2018 request and December 2019 request). SidenoteSome responses by Commission departments were sent by email instead of via the Asktheeu.org website. Based on the Commission’s responses to our requests, it is clear that the tobacco lobbying pressure remains intense. This takes the form of lobbying letters, but also a very significant number of meetings. The Commission’s responses refer to far over 300 letters (mainly via email) from the tobacco industry to the Commission and responses to these letters, since early 2017. The Commission’s health department (DG Sante) had by far the most intensive correspondence with the tobacco industry, followed by the Commission departments for internal market (DG Grow), taxation (DG Taxud), and DG Trade.

In addition to DG Sante (25 meetings pro-actively disclosed), DG Taxud and DG Trade had respectively 24 and 7 lobbying meetings with the tobacco industry, none of which were pro-actively disclosed. Via the three FOI requests, we also found five undisclosed meetings involving the Commission’s agriculture department (DG AGRI).

The documents Corporate Europe Observatory received show that tobacco industry lobbying has focused on three main priorities: delaying a revision of EU tobacco tax law, influencing EU trade negotiations with Latin America and other countries, and last but not least: shaping the EU’s new ‘track and trace’ system for tobacco products (which addresses the issue of illicit trade).

Lobbying to delay taxation

The directorate responsible for tax policy, DG Taxud, had at least 24 meetings with the tobacco industry since early 2017. During these meetings tobacco lobbyists tried to influence the Commission’s views on a possible revision of the 2011 directive on tobacco taxes (known as ‘excise duties’). Such a revision would be logical in the light of the emergence of e-cigarettes, heatsticks, SidenoteHeatsticks are electronic devices that heat tobacco leaves to produce an inhalable aerosol, instead of,burning tobacco like traditional cigarettes. and other new tobacco/nicotine products which are less taxed than cigarettes and other traditional tobacco products. According to the WHO, taxes are the single most effective tool in reducing tobacco consumption. Every year of delay means a continuation of the status quo and thus massive gains for the tobacco industry.

Officials from the Commission’s tax policy department met and discussed tobacco taxation with Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, Japan International Tobacco, and other tobacco lobbyists. A 2018 study by the Tobacco Investigations Desk (in part based on documents released through our FOI requests) concluded that DG Taxud’s “open door policy” towards the tobacco industry contributed to delaying the EU’s decision.

Industry lobbying on tobacco taxation continued during 2019 with DG Taxud meeting with – among others – tobacco lobby group ESTA, e-cigarette upstart Juul, and tobacco giant BAT. At a meeting in October 2019, BAT lobbyists brought with them Deloitte/Taj consultants “to present the findings of an analysis of the potential impacts of increasing the minimum rates in the tobacco tax directive”. The lobbyists argued “that there was no need to review the Directive,” claiming that “subsidiarity is important” (ie leaving the matter to member states). “E-cigarettes and heated tobacco products markets are only in the early years of development”, they argued, claiming “there is no sufficient data to support any tax regimes”.

Earlier this year, the Commission concluded that the differences between member states in terms of taxation of new tobacco products, electronic cigarettes, and heated tobacco products is a problem. The current tobacco taxation rules are no longer as effective in deterring tobacco consumption and the wide disparity in taxes between some member states is facilitating illegal trade. Last month EU member states decided to ask the European Commission to include these products under the EU Tobacco Excise Directive, with the goal to harmonise taxation across the EU. So after major delays, the EU has finally taken a step towards a revision of tobacco taxation law, but a new wave of industry lobbying on this is to be expected.

Trade policy serving Big Tobacco?

The Commission’s trade department (DG Trade) has had at least seven meetings with tobacco industry lobbyists since 2017, including with Japan International Tobacco, Philip Morris, Imperial Tobacco, and BAT. The meetings were about trade negotiations with Mexico, Mercosur (ie Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay), Japan, US, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand, trade relations with Russia and Belarus, as well as on trade and investment relations with United Arab Emirates and Oman. The notes from these meetings not only indicate that DG Trade is open to influence, but also make it clear that DG Trade actively seeks to promote the interests of the tobacco industry in these negotiations.

A major priority for the tobacco industry’s lobbying towards DG Trade was to pursue weakened rules of origin in the EU-Mexico and EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreements. Weaker rules of origin means less of the tobacco used in exported tobacco products has to originate from the EU. This enables tobacco giants with global value chains to benefit from lower unit costs of production and offshoring possibilities, thus boosting profits.

According to the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), a pan-European NGO coalition, these lobbying demands “seem to have been heeded by EU trade negotiators”, for instance in the renewed FTA with Mexico which has more flexible rules of origin for tobacco products than was the case before.

Industry-friendly ‘track and trace’

A very large share of both DG Sante’s and DG Grow’s correspondence with the tobacco industry was about the EU’s new “track and trace” system to target the illicit trade of tobacco products. An OCCRP investigation (in part based on documents released through our FOI requests) published in March 2020 found that Big Tobacco “spent years trying to control the design of a new system designed to curb the EU’s 10 billion-euro-a-year ($11 billion) black-market tobacco trade”. As a result, the OCCRP points out, the EU “has been left with what some experts say is an ineffective system that hands key functions to companies with ties to the tobacco industry”. The OCCRP highlights the problematic role of Inexto, a Philip Morris spin-off company, in the EU’s new “track and trace” system.

Five FOI transparency failures

Five key problems that Corporate Europe Observatory encountered with our FOI requests reveals a system not fit for purpose:

Burdensome: All three FOI requests were sent to the President of the European Commission, in hopes of receiving a single response from the Commission as a whole. Unfortunately the Commission split this into 7-8 different requests, each covering a specific department. This made the request extremely burdensome to track and follow up on.
Leaving out most DGs: When the Commission split the original request up, it did not include all relevant Commission departments. Tobacco lobbying contacts with the Commission departments for Research, Development Cooperation, Environment, and Employment, for instance, were excluded. It remains unclear how many meetings and other contacts the tobacco industry had with these departments.
Excludes industry federation lobbying: Another major loophole was the Commission’s exclusion of broader (not tobacco-specific) industry federations and other groups in which the tobacco industry plays a role. The tobacco industry uses industry coalitions such as BusinessEurope, AmCham, and other business groups in their lobbying strategies to gain access to EU decision-makers.
Flimsy and censored notes: Whereas DG Sante and DG Taxud keep extensive notes from meetings with the tobacco industry, DG Trade’s notes from such meetings are often absurdly superficial and give no real indication of the discussions that took place. The documents released are also often heavily redacted.
Hiding names of tobacco lobbyists: the Commission redacts all names in the minutes from meetings with tobacco lobbyists as well as in correspondence. This is the result of a flawed interpretation of the EU’s FOI law (Regulation 1049/2001): in recent years the European Commission has argued that names of lobbyists are ‘personal data’ that cannot be disclosed. But these are professional lobbyists trying to influence EU tobacco control policies in their official capacity as representatives of tobacco industry interests. Their names are information that should be available to the public – for instance to identify possible conflicts of interest – and indeed are already required to be published in the EU’s Transparency register. According to the register more than 35 tobacco lobbyists hold parliamentary access passes, yet the Commission refuses to show which meetings these lobbyists had with the Commission. The Commission’s approach is not just inconsistent, but a big step backwards. Back in 2012-2014 when the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) was being revised, the Commission was still disclosing lobbyists’ names. Disclosure of lobbyists’ names was crucially important for the investigations into the many controversies around tobacco industry lobbying around the TPD revision, including the Dalligate scandal. Examples include European Commission and Council officials who went through the revolving door to Swedish Match as well as former top Commission official Michel Petite who was working for tobacco giant Philip Morris while at the same time heading the Commission’s ethics advisory body. The Commission’s secrecy around the identity of the tobacco lobbyists they meet with is a serious obstacle to scrutiny of tobacco industry tactics. Unfortunately, even after Corporate Europe Observatory appealed and argued extensively against hiding the names of lobbyists, the Commission stuck to its position.

The way forward: pro-active transparency

The conclusion from our experience is clear: securing transparency around tobacco lobbying contacts via freedom of information requests is very burdensome and not a realistic option. This further underlines the fact that the European Commission must instead embrace pro-active transparency in order to fulfil its UN obligations, as demanded by the European Ombudsman in her 2016 ruling.

Therefore:

The European Commission should expand DG Sante’s approach to all other departments, ie all meetings with the tobacco industry across all DGs should be pro-actively listed on the Commission’s website.
There should be one central portal gathering this information to enable easy public scrutiny. This is by no means a radical demand: several governments have for years provided pro-active transparency around lobby meetings with the tobacco industry. For instance the Dutch Government has since 2016 had a central portal where it publishes all meetings with the tobacco industry, with links to meeting notes (across the government and its departments).
Best practice in implementing Article 5.3 with regards to transparency goes quite a lot further: for instance, the Dutch government publishes lists of all contacts with the tobacco industry, including not only meetings but also all correspondence.

To show what pro-active transparency could look like, we have compiled all the Commission meetings with tobacco lobbyists that surfaced through our investigation, with links to the notes from these meetings (see below). This – most likely incomplete - overview, gained through a burdensome FOI process, is of interest for the light it sheds on tobacco industry lobbying tactics and access to Commission decision-making. The list gives an impression of what pro-active transparency could look like, a simple measure with major positive impact in terms of enabling public scrutiny of the role of tobacco lobbying in EU decision-making.

Beyond transparency

Implementing Article 5.3 of the UN tobacco treaty means not just being transparent, but actively protecting policy-making from tobacco industry influence. Large parts of the Commission are failing in this respect. The documents released show that DG Taxud and DG Trade are not respecting the UN tobacco treaty obligation to limit contacts with the tobacco industry to the minimum needed for tobacco control regulation. This is not just because of the large number of meetings; the meeting notes make clear that these departments are open to being influenced by the tobacco industry.

This problem also exists at the top of the Commission. Why for instance would Juraj Nociar (a member of Comiission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič's cabinet) be meeting with Philip Morris International to discuss the ‘Working priorities of the new European Commission’? This meeting, which took place on 23 January 2020, is hardly in accordance with Article 5.3 and the obligation to limit contacts with the tobacco industry to the minimum needed for tobacco control regulation. In a 23 June article ‘“Šefčovič's cig gig’, Politico quotes the Commission’s argument that this was a ‘courtesy meeting’ “which took place in the context of a New Year's concert under the patronage of VP Šefčovič (who is from Slovakia)” and quotes a Commission spokesperson saying: "Philip Morris was one of the sponsors of the concert and held a courtesy meeting, like other sponsors, with a Member of Cabinet." Discussing the Commission’s working priorities with tobacco industry representatives at an event sponsored by the tobacco industry is a flagrant violation of Article 5.3 and its guidelines, which call for de-normalising the tobacco industry and avoiding the appearance of partnership. The Commission claimed that the meeting "did not touch upon topics related to tobacco control".

The notes from the meeting, obtained by Corporate Europe Observatory via a FOI request, show that this may not be accurate. During what appears to have been a half hour conversation the very generally worded notes state that Philip Morris “presented their activities, confirmed there is a need to innovate products towards [a] more clean and low-carbon society, adaptation to digital technologies and to focus on research and innovation". When the world’s biggest tobacco company talks about their activities, and their plans for product innovation, how can this be unrelated to tobacco control? The internal documents we obtained show that Nociar replaced his Commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, in the meeting, and indicate that Šefčovič may have had numerous meetings with Philip Morris at the occasion of the annual Slovak New Year's concert which he appears to have regularly attended during the previous 15 years. "We regret that the receptions with the Vice-President will not take place after 15 years”, the organisers write, continuing with stating that they look forward to meeting Nociar instead.

Commissioner Šefčovič’s online calendar of lobby meetings since 2014 does not include any meetings with Philip Morris at the occasion of the Slovak New Year’s concerts in Brussels, but documents obtained via FOI show that he did have at least one such meeting in January 2017. When Corporate Europe Observatory asked for notes from the meeting on 26 January 2017 between Lubomira Hromkova (DG Energy Union) and PMI (“Occasion of the Slovak New Year Concert”), it turned out that this meeting was in fact with Commissioner Šefčovič, not just with Lubomira Hromkova! Not disclosing this meeting in his online register of lobby meetings is a major transparency failure on the part of the Commissioner. The notes reveal that they discussed "challenges of the company such as illegal trafficking and counterfeiting" and “future key topics for the tobacco industry” such as “adaptation to digital technologies (digital tracking)”. Again, these are issues that are clearly related to tobacco control policy.

Commissioner Šefčovič’s undisclosed meeting(s) with Philip Morris are unfortunately not unique. Another example of an undisclosed meeting with tobacco lobbyists surfaced in an email from a British American Tobacco (BAT) lobbyist to a member of Commissioner Timmermans’ cabinet (7 April 2017). Timmermans at that time was Commission Vice-President for ‘Better Regulation’, the Commission’s initiative to reduce the impact of regulations on businesses, which the tobacco industry has eagerly used as opportunity bypass the Commission's health department (DG Sante). The email starts with the following words: “It was a pleasure to meet you before the Mentor Group dinner on Tuesday” (the Mentor Group is a corporate thinktank listing large US corporations and law firms as members). The letter continues with complaints about DG Sante and its “level of interaction with the industry”, which BAT considers to be insufficient. Timmermans’ cabinet member, Ben Smulders, did disclose that he met with the Mentor Group on 4 April 2017, but failed to mention a meeting with tobacco giant BAT (which is not a member of the Mentor Group). The Commission clearly needs a far more rigorous approach to avoid meetings of Commissioners and other top officials with tobacco lobbyists going undisclosed.

Examples like these also give the strong impression that parts of the European Commission (with the exception of DG Sante) appear to have an open-door policy for tobacco industry, meaning that the standard approach is that tobacco industry requests for meetings are accepted. This is at odds with Article 5.3 and the accompanying guidelines. Even if specific meetings are considered necessary, it would be best to organise these not as one-on-one meetings, but as stakeholder meetings with a wider set of interests present.

Actively protecting policy-making from tobacco industry influence requires a clearly defined policy across the Commission. Contrary to what the Commission has previously claimed, its general ethics rules (Code of Conduct for Commissioners and the Staff Regulations) are not sufficient.

Several governments show how to do this well. The Australian government has a detailed ‘Guidance for Public Officials on Interacting with the Tobacco Industry’, which states clearly that “the tobacco industry should not be in a position to influence the implementation to tobacco control measures and policies”. The Dutch government’s website on tobacco lobbying clearly spells out that the objective is to protect public health policies from tobacco industry influence and states that contacts with the tobacco industry should be limited merely to technical implementation matters. The website also features a protocol for how government officials should handle contacts with the tobacco industry.

In another FOI request submitted this spring, we asked the Commission for its rules, instructions, and guidance for Commission officials about dealing with the tobacco industry, clarifying what is or is not appropriate when there is contact with the tobacco industry, and how such contacts should be handled. There do not appear to be any formal rules of this kind, as academics Benjamin Hawkins and Chris Holden concluded in a 2018 study.

As the Commission prepares for the 2021 review of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), it’s crucial that it gets its house in order. A clear lesson from the previous TPD review was that the tobacco industry’s lobbying strategy was to bypass DG Sante and seek to influence EU tobacco control legislation via other Commission Departments. These DGs do not have pro-active transparency around meetings with tobacco lobbyists nor other measures to protect decision-making from tobacco industry influence. It is high time for the Commission to get serious about keeping this deadly industry from influencing EU legislation.

Disclosed meetings of top European Commission officials with tobacco lobbyists (since January 2017)

Date of meeting	EU official	Tobacco interest	Topic
26/1/2017	Lubomira Hromkova (DG Energy Union)	Meeting with PMI.	“Occasion of the Slovak New Year Concert”
6/3/2017	Director-General Stephen Quest (DG Taxation and Customs Union)	Meeting with PMI.	“Update on Excise & Customs clarification of tobacco products”.
30/3/2017	Director-General Stephen Quest (DG Taxation and Customs Union)	Meeting with BAT.	“Revision of the European tobacco excise directive”.
9/11/2017	Nicholas Ilett (Director-General European Anti- Fraud Office, OLAF)	Meeting with EUK Consulting, lobbyist for clients Nicoventures and BAT.	“Track and trace system under the Tobacco Products Directive”.
9/11/2017	Eduard Hulicius (Cabinet member of Věra Jourová Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality)	Meeting with PMI.	“New technologies diminishing harm to tobacco user”
1/10/2018	Kyriacos Charalambous (Cabinet member of Johannes Hahn, European Neighbourhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations)	Meeting with BAT.	“Meeting to discuss economic climate and business environment in Kosovo”.
23/1/2020	Juraj Nociar (DG Energy Union)	Meeting with PMI.	“Working priorities of the new European Commission”.

Note: these meetings were retrieved via the Lobbyfacts.eu website

PMI's meetings: https://lobbyfacts.eu/representative/cb85447517124eecb8071373a7a195f3/philip-morris-international-inc#explore-data-tab-content-meetings

BAT's meetings: https://lobbyfacts.eu/representative/84c2dc4290254a6ea22f8932a48fa571/british-american-tobacco#explore-data-tab-content-meetings

Undisclosed European Commission meetings with the tobacco industry (since January 2017)

DG Trade (7 meetings)

Date of meeting	EU official	Tobacco interest	Topic
21/3/2017	Undisclosed DG Trade official/s.	Meetings with representatives of British American Tobacco.	Belarus WTO accession and bilateral trade dialogue EU-Belarus.
27/3/2017	Undisclosed DG Trade official/s.	Meeting with Japan Tobacco International.	Labour issues in FTAs, negotiations with Mercosur, Mexico, Japan, & ASEAN countries, as well as TTIP and CETA.
12/9/2017	Undisclosed DG Trade official/s.	Meeting with BAT, CECCM (since renamed Tobacco Europe), Imperial Brands, Japan International Tobacco, Philip Morris.	FTA negotiations with Mexico and the Mercosur countries.
18/9/2017	Undisclosed DG Trade official/s.	Meeting with Japan Tobacco International.	Free Trade negotiations with Mercosur, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia/New Zealand, Japan & USA; WTO, Brexit.
13/11/2017	Undisclosed DG Trade official/s.	Meeting with BAT, CECCM (Tobacco Europe), Imperial Brands, Japan International Tobacco, & Philip Morris.	FTA negotiations with Mercosur and Mexico.
8/4/2018	Undisclosed DG Trade official/s.	“Meeting with the EU tobacco industry….	“… to discuss the market access problems they were experiencing in the UAE and Oman”. Mission report from 8^th Annual Investment Meeting in Dubai.
23/5/2019	Undisclosed DG Trade official/s.	Meeting with Japan International Tobacco.	EU FTA negotiations with the Mercosur bloc, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Chile, Malaysia, Thailand, India and the Philippines; implementation of EU FTAs (Singapore, Mexico, Vietnam, Japan, Colombia-Peru-Ecuador), as well as the ongoing EU investment negotiations, notably with China.

DG Taxud (24 meetings)

Date of meeting	EU official	Tobacco interest	Topic
17/1/2017	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with British American Tobacco (BAT), Imperial Tobacco (ImTob) and the British Independent Vape and Trade Organisation (IBVTA).	Fiscalis Project Group classification and inclusion of (new) tobacco products in the scope of excisable tobacco products.
6/3/2017	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with Philip Morris International.	Review of Directive 2011/64/EU (excise duties on manufactured tobacco).
8/3/2017	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with BAT.	“In view of the revision of Directive 2011/64/EU, BAT had asked Luiss University to carry out a study on fine-cut tobacco and the Minimum Excise Duty.”
30/3 2017	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with BAT.	Tobacco taxation; BAT’s view on the customs classification as well as the excise duty treatment of new products (tobacco heated products and non-tobacco products eg some forms of e-cigarettes).
29/6/2017	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with SWM Intl (a company that produces reconstituted tobacco and cigarette paper).	Revision of Directive 2011/64/EU (SWM Intl was “concerned of the effects the inclusion of raw tobacco within the scope of excisable goods”).
30/6/2017	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with Fontem Ventures, Hering Schuppener Consulting, Steward Redqueen (also a consultancy firm).	E-cigarettes, the possible revision of Directive 2011/64/EU and “a study on the socio-economic effects of an excise duty on e-cigarettes in the EU and the Member States”.
6/7/2017	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with PA International (a lobby consultancy firm) and AKD (law firm).	Directive2011/64/EU and the issue of borderline cigarillos, products which for excise purposes fall in the category of cigars and cigarillos but have similar characteristics to cigarettes.
19/12/2017	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with Japan Tobacco International.	Tobacco taxation (Directive 2011/64/EU), the French government’s approach and the question of minimum pricing.
25/1/2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with British American Tobacco.	Tobacco taxation and the launch of Heat-not-Burn tobacco products in EU Member-States.
17/4/2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with Fetratab and Deltafina.	Taxation of raw tobacco - Directive 2011/64.
25/5/2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with PMI.	Directive 2011/64/EU e-cigarettes Heated Tobacco Products.
31/5/2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting of Excise Contact Group (participants not disclosed)	Unknown (the minutes were almost 100% redacted).
25/6 2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with PMI.	Directive 2011/64/EU, e-cigarettes, Heated Tobacco Products.
17/7/2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with Imperial Brands and Altadison.	Directive 2011/64 ((the Tobacco Excise Duty Directive).
18/7/2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with Al Fakher Tobacco Factory.	Taxation of water-pipe tobacco (Directive 2011/64).
24/7/2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with Bündnis für tabakfreien Genuss (German Association for e-cigarettes)	Directive 2011/64 and possible taxation of e-cigarettes.
26/11/2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting of Excise Contact Group (participants not disclosed)	Unknown (the minutes were almost 100% redacted).
4/12 2018	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with BAT, JTI, Imperial Brands and the Confederation of European Community Cigarette Manufacturers (CECCM – since renamed TobaccoEurope).	Directive 2011/64/EU (the Tobacco Excise Duty Directive).
14/12/2018.	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with European Cigar Manufacturers Association (ECMA).	Directive 2011/64/EU (the Tobacco Excise Duty Directive).
12/2/2019	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with European Smoking Tobacco Association (ESTA).	Tobacco taxation; ESTA presented the findings of a study on taxation of fine-cut tobacco that they commissioned.
11/3/2019	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with Juul.	Taxation of e-cigarettes.
10/9/2019	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with the German Association of Vapers (BfTG) and Simply Europe.	Tobacco and e-cigarettes taxation.
8/10/2019	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Meeting with BAT and Deloitte/Taj consultants.	Tobacco tax directive and Deloitte/ Taj study on “potential impacts of increasing the minimum rates” of taxation.
22/10/2019	Undisclosed DG Taxud official/s.	Visit to TabakNatie, Port of Antwerp.	Tabaknatie handling raw tobacco in the Port of Antwerp (in context of tobacco taxation issues).

DG AGRI (5 meetings)

Date of meeting	EU official	Tobacco interest	Topic
26/1 2017	Undisclosed DG AGRI official/s.	Carlo Sacchetto, secretary general of FETRATAB.	Illegal market in raw tobacco.
5/4 2017	Undisclosed DG AGRI official/s.	Civil Dialogue Group “Arable crops”- Section,“,Tobacco”; including COPA-COGECA, UNITAB, FETRATAB and others	UNFCTC COP7, tobacco taxes, etc.
9/7 2018	Undisclosed DG AGRI official/s.	COPA-COGECA working group on tobacco.	Market situation and EU tobacco policies.
16/10 2018	Undisclosed DG AGRI official/s.	UNITAB (European association of tobacco growers).	Raw tobacco taxation and other issues.
12/12 2019	Undisclosed DG AGRI official/s.	COPA-COGECA and others.	Tobacco production and subsidies.

This report is part of a collaboration with the University of Bath, a research partner in the global industry watchdog STOP, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies (www.bloomberg.org).