Sunday July 23. That is the deadline that Spain had to transpose Directive 2022/2100 that regulates various aspects of heated tobacco and that ends with some exceptions that these products enjoyed. For this, it was expected that the last Council of Ministers before the general elections would meet the deadline set by Europe and give the green light to the relevant royal decree that modifies a previous regulation (Royal Decree 579/2017)..

The Ministry of Health, for the moment, has not given an explanation about the reason for this delay and the failure to meet the deadline to approve a rule that completed its claims process on July 6. A breach that occurs in the semester in which Spain presides over the Council of the European Union.

According to the latest draft prepared, the new regulation will establish what type of articles it is about -defines them- and will withdraw certain exceptions that they enjoyed up to now with respect to other products.

First, the text states that heated tobacco is a “novel tobacco product that is heated to produce an emission containing nicotine and other chemical substances, which is then inhaled by users and which, depending on its characteristics, is a smokeless tobacco product or a smoking tobacco product.

In addition, in the section that addresses the ingredients and additives, heated tobacco is included in the prohibition of containing characteristic aromas and “flavourings in its components, such as filters, rolling papers, containers, capsules, or any other technical characteristic that allows modifying the smell or taste of tobacco products, or intensifying smoke. Filters, papers and capsules may not contain tobacco or nicotine.”

Finally, once the royal decree has been approved, which would enter into force next October, heated tobacco items must include messages and images with health warnings in the same way as other tobacco products.. Thus, the draft states that only “tobacco products for smoking other than cigarettes, tobacco for rolling, waterpipe tobacco and heated tobacco products will be exempt from the obligation to include informative messages and from the color photographs that are part of health warnings”.

Under European law, Member States must transpose directives within the established period and, failing to do so, the Commission can initiate infringement proceedings, which can end in a fine, and bring proceedings against the country before the Court of Justice of the European Union.

For Andrés Zamorano, president of the National Committee for the Prevention of Smoking (CNPT), the pending royal decree has remained a “minimum” standard, since, as he explained to this medium, the Committee had requested, among other issues, that it include plain packaging and that electronic cigarettes, with and without nicotine, be equated to the classic fuels. In addition, they requested that these latest devices could not be sold anywhere.