Delegates to the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) said treaty signatories should raise tobacco taxes and prices to curb demand, but stopped short of a specific recommendation, Reuters said.

It was not immediately clear whether an earlier WHO proposal to raise tax to a minimum 70 per cent of retail price was among the recommendations. The FCTC shut out the public and media at the onset of its week long plenary session, and has released almost no information on what is transpiring at the semi-annual plenary session to review the treaty.
Recommendations to the 179 signatory countries will become guidelines for implementing Article 6 of the treaty. Because the meeting is being held in Moscow, some countries did not send delegations in protest against Russian involvement in Ukraine.
“Public health authorities are not fiscal experts”, said Michiel Reerink, vice president for regulatory strategy at Japan Tobacco International. “While the guidelines are not binding for their governments, ministries of finance will be under pressure to adopt them into their national law.
Adopting the recommendations was made “hurriedly” in the absence of many national government tax experts, Reerink said. They represent an attempt by the international body to impose tax policy on sovereign states, he said.