Swiss officials have placed a request with the Moldovan authorities on behalf of the cigarette manufacturing company Philip Morris, in response to the new Government’s attempts to raise taxes on heat-not-burn tobacco products. 

According to swissinfo.ch, Swiss officials have requested that Philip Morris be given a voice in discussions surrounding Moldova’s new tobacco regulations. The Moldovan deputies changed the Law on Tobacco Control, the Code on Contraventions and the Tax Code. The new reforms are aimed at reducing tobacco consumption among Moldova’s population, where smoking affects some 50 percent of people. 

The Swiss embassy in Kyiv, which also covers interests in Chișinău, placed the request in July when Moldova’s politicians were debating a harsh new tobacco law. The Philip Morris company is a big employer and tax-payers Moldova, and as such asked the Swiss embassy to push for the possibility to contribute (like all other interested parties) to public consultations on the proposed legislation that would affect smokers and hence, their business. 

The Swiss Foreign Ministry in Bern said that the request sent to Moldovan authorities solely concerns the consultation process and does not touch on the content of the new legislation, which it said was a matter for the parliament in Chișinău to decide. 

“One of the tasks of Swiss embassies is to represent the interests of the Swiss economy in their host country,” the Foreign Ministry told Le Temps, to explain its support for Philip Morris. “That’s why it happens quite often that embassies are contacted directly by companies.”

While the tobacco group did manage to arrange a hearing on the new legislation on July 17, Moldovan politicians turned a deaf ear and accepted the new law at the end of the month. 

In May 2019, deputies from the ACUM Bloc launched a tobacco control initiative, which proposed amendments to three normative acts: the Law on Tobacco Control, the Contravention Code and the Tax Code. The Parliament passed the amendments in the second reading in July 2019.  

The Law will enter into force on January 1, 2020 offering time for the tobacco industry to comply with the legislation.