Belgium’s proposed new regulations

ADACT have recently been informed of a range of new regulations which are are being proposed for goods sold in the Belgian market. A summary of the proposed regulations includes:

• Nicotine free products are to be considered ‘usual’ rather than ‘similar’ which appears to mean that they would come under the same regulation as nicotine containing products in Belgium
• Zero nicotine products are covered by the advertising ban.
• Ban on sale of zero nicotine products to children.
• Ban on smoking/vaping applies to zero nicotine products.
• Belgium requires a local representative for the notifications that takes responsibility (An EU representative would not be sufficient).
• Labelling, packaging and leaflets will need to be uploaded with the notification.
• Belgium will be adopting a positive list similar to the UK list and products not on the list cannot be sold.
• Updates and changes to notifications will attract a notification fee (There will be three levels of fees depending on the nature of the update).
• A notification fee of €200 is proposed.
• An annual renewal fee of €50 is also proposed.
• Annual data would need to be submitted before 1 March of each year.
• Special lighting effects on devices will be banned and product must not be made attractive.
• Possible ban on CBD vapes.
• New regulations will be based on the precautionary principle, which is do no chance of harm, which usually means an extreme risk averse approach at the expense of risk prevention.
• No distance (I.e. online) sales will be required.
• All products must comply with ISO8317:2003 for child resistant packaging.
• EC-IDs on packaging.

A public consultation is due to take place on 10 February 2023 and we advise you to take this opportunity to share your views by emailing [email protected]

To discuss how the proposed changes could affect your brand, please call +44(0)1302 986 088 or email [email protected]