Italy is criticizing efforts by a group of EU countries to pressure the European Commission into proposing an overdue update to the bloc’s tobacco tax rules.
Italy this week circulated a position paper, seen by Bloomberg, criticizing a push for new tobacco legislation favored by the majority of the 27 EU countries as “not properly balanced.”
The proposed rules would raise the floor on tobacco taxes across the bloc and include new products like e-cigarettes in the law’s scope.
Italy’s paper, which is aiming to get signatures of support from EU countries opposed to incoming legislation, argued …