Swedish government capitulates on snus

The Swedish government sees no hope of overturning the-near EU-wide sales ban on snus and so will concentrate on protecting the right to sell the product in Sweden; the only country where it isn’t banned, according to a Reuters News story quoting the Minister for Children and the Elderly, Maria Larsson.

Sweden pushed for the ban to be overturned in the run-up to the publication of the European Commission’s recommended revisions to its Tobacco Products Directive.

“In regards to the question of exports, there isn’t any chance of success,” the national news agency TT quoted Larsson as saying.

A Swedish Match spokeswoman said it was too early to say what Larsson’s comments meant. “But it would clearly be a disappointment should the Swedish government really have decided to abandon its long-running efforts to allow Swedish products to trade under equal terms as those from other countries, especially the most harmful of tobacco products – cigarettes,” Rupini Bergstrom said.