Council Directive 2011/64/EUShow full title

Council Directive 2011/64/EU of 21 June 2011 on the structure and rates of excise duty applied to manufactured tobacco (codification)

Article 4U.K.

1.For the purposes of this Directive the following shall be deemed to be cigars or cigarillos if they can be and, given their properties and normal consumer expectations, are exclusively intended to be smoked as they are:

(a)rolls of tobacco with an outer wrapper of natural tobacco;

(b)rolls of tobacco with a threshed blend filler and with an outer wrapper of the normal colour of a cigar, of reconstituted tobacco, covering the product in full, including, where appropriate, the filter but not, in the case of tipped cigars, the tip, where the unit weight, not including filter or mouthpiece, is not less than 2,3 g and not more than 10 g, and the circumference over at least one third of the length is not less than 34 mm.

2.By way of derogation from paragraph 1, the following subparagraph may continue to be applied by Germany and Hungary until 31 December 2014.

The following shall be deemed to be cigars or cigarillos if they can be smoked as they are:

(a)rolls of tobacco made entirely of natural tobacco;

(b)rolls of tobacco with an outer wrapper of natural tobacco;

(c)rolls of tobacco with a threshed blend filler and with an outer wrapper of the normal colour of a cigar covering the product in full, including, where appropriate, the filter but not, in the case of tipped cigars, the tip, and a binder, both being of reconstituted tobacco, where the unit weight, not including filter or mouthpiece, is not less than 1,2 g and where the wrapper is fitted in spiral form with an acute angle of at least 30° to the longitudinal axis of the cigar;

(d)rolls of tobacco with a threshed blend filler and with an outer wrapper of the normal colour of a cigar, of reconstituted tobacco, covering the product in full, including where appropriate the filter but not, in the case of tipped cigars, the tip, where the unit weight, not including filter or mouth-piece, is not less than 2,3 g and the circumference over at least one third of the length is not less than 34 mm.

3.Products which consist in part of substances other than tobacco but otherwise fulfil the criteria set out in paragraph 1 shall be treated as cigars and cigarillos.