Sweden is the only EU Member State where it is lawful to buy snus. With the state’s accession to the EU, legal acts at EU on tobacco carved out an exception that allowed the oral tobacco to continue to be sold, owing to it’s prevalence in society.
In Case C-434/02, Arnold André, the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld the lawfulness of a differentiated internal market, whereby EU law bans a good from being sold, except for one EU Member State.
Now, updates to tobacco legislation are back on the table for consideration. What does the future hold for this exception to EU secondary law (that Sweden has no veto over)? 🚭🚬🫁
You can read the new article in POLITICO Europe by Carlo Martuscelli at the following link: https://lnkd.in/eH3SeH7t
For academic background on the issues, see also, Hans Henrik Lidgard, ‘Swedish Snus Confronts Basic EU Principles’, in Modern Issues in European Law: Nordic Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Lennart Pålsson (Kluwer, 1997); and Eva Karlsson, ‘”Snus” and the Swedish Integration into the EU’, in Liber Amicorum in Honour of Sven Norberg: A European for all Seasons (Bruylant, 2006).
Graham Butler