Who Foots the Bill? Health Taxes and the EU’s Search for Revenue

This event will be livestreamed here and on Youtube.

Today, a quarter of European children aged seven to nine are overweight or obese. Smoking is a major cause of preventable death in the EU. In order to improve health outcomes and its own budgetary situation, the European Commission’s next budget leans on new own resources, including a tobacco levy, and a tax on foods high in fat, sugar, and salt is now openly discussed.

But can a tax designed to discourage consumption also serve as a reliable source of public revenue? And who will ultimately bear the cost: consumers, businesses, or lower- income households? As Brussels looks for new ways to finance its priorities, these questions deserve closer scrutiny.

The Martens Centre and EPICENTER invite you to question whether a new levy would guide Europeans towards healthier choices or fill a budget hole. Drawing on the Nanny State Index and Hungary’s own food-tax experiment, we will discuss how prosperity, not punishment, can lead to a healthier Europe.

We ask a harder question than “tax or no tax”. How do you improve health outcomes through growth, prosperity and a disciplined EU budget, rather than through a levy on the weekly shop?