Introduction:
The European Union (EU) Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) was adopted in 2014, and at that time represented best practice in some policy areas. Best practice in tobacco control has since progressed and the TPD is in urgent need of reform. Given the regional influence of the EU, and the need for countries seeking to join to align their domestic legislation with EU law, many non-EU Eastern European countries have emulated TPD rules when adopting tobacco control laws.

Objective:
To compare the tobacco control laws of EU candidate and potential candidate countries with the TPD rules and with global best practice to assess whether the TPD has acted as an accelerant of tobacco control norms, or a barrier to implementing stricter rules.

Material and Methods:
To compare the tobacco control laws of EU candidate and potential candidate countries with the TPD rules and with global best practice to assess whether the TPD has acted as an accelerant of tobacco control norms, or a barrier to implementing stricter rules.

Results:
(1) Analysis and comparison of laws in four policy areas (health warnings, other packaging rules, flavorings and e-cigarette regulation) in: the TPD rules, national legislation and draft laws of studied countries, WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control obligations and recommendations, and global best practice; and (2) standardized interviews with tobacco control focal points from studied countries.

Conclusions:
As expected for EU candidate countries, TPD rules heavily influenced the tobacco control laws in all studied countries. For at least some of those countries, where there was political will to adopt best practice, the TPD acted as a limiting factor, meaning that less strict rules were implemented. For other countries, the TPD norms set a policy baseline which otherwise may not have been reached.