Over the past decade, the Forum addressed a number of issues of common concern to this specific market segment, such as market statistics, board specifi cations & quality, service defi nitions, e-trading terms and anti-counterfeiting.

A driver of activity throughout its existence has been the successive policy plans and measures by the European Commission’s DG ‘SANCO’ (Health and Consumers) to implement Directives on the use of tobacco packaging as medium for advertising the sale of cigarettes. Starting with rotating texts containing healthcare warnings indifferent languages, then with measures to print full colour healthcare pictorials, DG SANCO is now working on a revision of the Tobacco Products Directive, which may feature plain or standardised packaging.

The expert activities of the Tobacco Forum focus on the impact of plain or standardised packaging proposals on counterfeiting in the EU and how this in turn may touch upon EU health policy and the EU Packaging industry. Current key concerns in this respect are that plain or standardised packaging will eliminate complexity and will result in an increase in the illicit tobacco trade and will bring harm to responsible manufacturing in the EU.

The Tobacco Forum has made (and is making) an important contribution to the public debate between policy makers and stakeholders in fi nding the right balance between public health, anti-counterfeiting and the carton sector’s own economic interest.

The Tobacco Forum is chaired by Jerzy Czubak (Amcor Tobacco Packaging, CH) and supported by Mike Turner and Barbara Ginter (ECMA).