Impact analysis of the review of tobacco excise duty rules

The purpose of this study is to provide a set of analytical findings, which can support the European Commission’s work in developing its proposal for the revision of the Directive 2011/64/EU on the structure and rates of excise duty applied to manufactured tobacco. The specific objectives of the study are the following:

• To construct the logic of intervention on the basis of both public health and internal market objectives.
• To specify in detail the workable options of the intervention and provide a detailed overview of alternative design options, their key elements, impacts and technical specifications;
• To prepare an analysis of costs, benefits, opportunities and risks in respect of the options, and of the different variants within each option, with the expectation that the analysis will feed into preparations for a future impact assessment and legislative proposal.
• To assess the technical feasibility of every option identified in relation to EU law and international obligations.

The output of the project will allow the Commission to establish an overview of the scale of the problems identified in the evaluation of the Directive, the evolution of the problems if no further EU action is taken (the dynamic baseline scenario) and the potential impacts of several options proposed to solve the problems.

Partners: Economisti Associati srl (Leader), CEPS – Centre for European Policy studies

Project funding: DG Taxud