Belgium has confirmed a ban on vape flavors, leaving consumers with only two legal options: tobacco-flavored or unflavored. The move, which will make vaping less attractive to people who smoke, has been coming. And harm reduction advocates worry about its wider influence across the European Union.
Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke cited familiar concerns to justify the ban in an April 30 press release, in which he claimed it would “protect the health of our children.” The ban is set to take effect in September 2028.
“The fear is, if enough countries have a flavor ban, the Commission may just try and harmonize the rest of the EU and place a blanket ban.”
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, is due to release proposed revisions to the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD)—EU legislation governing manufacturing, marketing and sales—later in 2026. It’s currently conducting a consultation. As important decisions are made concerning the whole EU, new national bans could prove contagious.
“The risk is that Belgium’s ban encourages a domino effect, where more member states introduce their own restrictions before the TPD is even proposed, building pressure for an EU-wide flavor ban,” Damian Sweeney told Filter.
Sweeney is an Irish advocate and partner with the consumer advocacy group European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (ETHRA). “The fear is,” he said, “we’ll get to a stage where if enough countries have a flavor ban, the Commission may just try and harmonize the rest of the EU and place a blanket ban.”
The recent European Commission evaluation report on nicotine, Sweeney noted, “already incorrectly frames safer nicotine products largely through the lens of youth appeal and regulatory challenges.”
“For consumers, the concern is obvious”, he continued. “If Belgium’s approach is treated as a model for the revised Tobacco Products Directive, adult smokers across Europe could lose access to the very products that helped many of them move away from cigarettes.”
The Netherlands, one of Belgium’s neighbors, illustrates how counter-productive flavor bans can be.
This isn’t the first time Belgium has cracked down on vapes, and it likely influenced other nations before. In January 2025, Belgium became the first EU country to ban disposable vapes. France rapidly followed suit—and later that year, the non-EU but nearby United Kingdom did the same.
When it comes to flavor bans, the Netherlands, one of Belgium’s neighbors, illustrates how counter-productive they can be.
The Netherlands imposed a flavour ban in January 2024. Youth vaping promptly increased, from 3.7 percent in 2023 to 7.6 percent in 2024, mostly using banned flavors. Youth smoking increased too, and the total number of cigarettes consumed in the country rose by 1 percent—with 27 percent of those who quit vaping because of the ban choosing to smoke instead. Vape sales have simply shifted to the unregulated market. A government study, conducted in April, found that almost nine in 10 people who vape in the Netherlands use products that are sold illegally.
This time Belgium will not be starting the trend; flavor bans already exist in nine EU countries, including Finland, Slovenia and Denmark. Recently, the Irish government moved closer to banning flavors. And Germany is advancing a ban on cooling agents in e-liquids, which would amount to a de facto flavour ban.
Flavors are crucial to the effectiveness of vapes as harm reduction. More and more, the EU, which suffers around 700,000 annual smoking-related deaths, appears to be heading in the opposite direction.
Photograph by Kurt S. via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 2.0
