A frontrunner in the global effort against smoking, the European Commission recently made clear in its Beating Cancer Plan that its objective was to create a  ‘tobacco-free generation’,  aiming at reducing the European Smokers to less than 5% of the overall Union’s population by 2040.

The Commission embraces the ‘endgame’ strategy, a term in vogue in the public health community to describe a world where tobacco products have been phased out completely, or their sales severely restricted. It is no surprise that the Commission recently decided to register a European Citizen’s Initiative calling for ending the sale of tobacco and nicotine products to citizens born in 2010 and onwards.