The European Commission has unveiled a plan to expand smoke-free environments across the EU, including Austria.
The proposal seeks to extend current smoking bans to more outdoor spaces, including terraces, public playgrounds, and transport stops and addresses emerging products like e-cigarettes.
Although Austria already enforces indoor smoking bans, smokers are still commonly found in outdoor spaces like terraces.
In Austria, one in five people over the age of 15 smokes every day. In addition, around six percent of the population are occasional smokers, according to Statistik Austria data.
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Much like other European countries, when the indoor smoking ban came into effect, many restaurant and café owners adapted by making terraces more smoker-friendly, even with temporary walls and heaters.
What is the Commission’s plan?
The European Commission is calling on member states, including Austria, to:
- Extend smoke-free policies to outdoor public spaces, particularly areas where children and families gather, such as parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, and outdoor areas of public buildings, zoos, and transport stations.
- Include emerging tobacco products such as heated tobacco and e-cigarettes in these restrictions, citing the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recent warning about the adverse effects of exposure to second-hand emissions from these products.
The initiative is part of the European Commission’s broader "Beating Cancer Plan" to create a "Tobacco-Free Generation" by 2040. The goal is to have fewer than 5 percent of Europeans using tobacco by then.
Will it be legally binding in Austria?
The plan is not legally binding, meaning Austria is not obliged to implement the Commission’s suggestions. The country is also not likely to do so.
Austria was one of the latest countries in the EU to introduce an indoor smoking ban - in 2019 after much internal debate. The party currently leading the polls for the national elections, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), has also historically been vehemently opposed to any measures to curb smoking.
It repeatedly blocked such measures when it was part of the ruling coalition. The indoor ban was set to be introduced years earlier, but only after the coalition broke down the ruling party ÖVP was able to bring the proposal forward.
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What could change in Austria?
The federal government had plans to amend the Tobacco and Non-Smoker Protection Act, but the measures have not moved forward - and nothing is likely to change in the near future with the elections coming up.
The draft amendment, among other things, provided for an Austria-wide extension of the smoking ban to “additional outdoor public places” such as “children’s playgrounds and recreational areas for children and young people.”
There were also plans to regulate so-called nicotine pouches – small packets pushed under the upper lip that deliver nicotine and flavours (but not tobacco). They have become increasingly popular, especially among younger people.
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