Belgium. Increase in the price of tobacco products

In order to reduce tobacco consumption, Belgium has announced that it plans to increase excise duties on tobacco for all remaining years of the legislature (i.e. until 2024).[1]

The government wants to increase the prices of tobacco products by an average of one euro from 2021. A pack of 20 cigarettes - which currently costs €6.80 - will cost €7.50, while the price of 50 grams of tobacco will rise from €9.70 to €11.17. Increases are also planned in the following years and up to 2024.

Repeated and significant increases in taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products are considered a very effective mechanism to reduce tobacco use, especially among young people and the most vulnerable. Such increases play a vital role in all countries that want to achieve a tobacco-free generation.

A set of measures to achieve a tobacco-free generation by 2037

With 19% of its population smoking in 2018, Belgium wants to achieve a Tobacco Free Generation by 2037, which means that every child born from 2019 onwards will be protected from exposure to tobacco smoke at every stage of their development, so that growing up tobacco-free and not smoking becomes the norm. Federal Health Minister Maggie De Block presented a range of measures with this in mind in her anti-smoking plan in 2016[2] (increasing taxes, making quitting aids more accessible, protecting children from passive smoking by banning smoking in cars when minors are present, adopting plain packaging, etc.).

As of January 1, 2020[3], Belgium has joined the growing number of countries that have adopted plain packaging, which in Europe includes France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Ireland and the Netherlands. to have introduced such a measure. Unlike France, plain packaging applies not only to classic manufactured cigarettes and rolling tobacco but also to shisha tobacco, as well as related products such as rolling papers, cigarette tubes and filters.

Keywords: Belgium, taxes, tobacco, Tobacco Free Generation