Greece remains a country that loves smoking and has one of the highest smoking rates in Europe. Credit: Susanne Nilsson CC-BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Greece has long battled a high smoking rate, second only to Bulgaria in the EU, leading to multiple attempts to enforce a public smoking ban.
Greeks smoke more than most other Europeans, and even 15 years after Greece banned smoking in indoor public places, it is not uncommon to see people light up in bars and clubs.
In 2023, a health profile of Greece from the European Commission reported that about a fifth of the country’s deaths in 2019 could be attributed to tobacco smoking, including direct and secondhand.
The initial 2010 ban was largely flouted, prompting the government to introduce a stricter law in 2019. It included fines of 100 euros (about $115) for patrons smoking indoors and up to €10,000 for businesses, along with a complaints hotline.
To enforce the ban, the authorities conducted 3,376 inspections on enclosed public spaces in the first 11 months of this year, about 2,200 of them in Athens, according to the agency in charge. It said it had issued 659 fines, totaling €529,400, for violations during that time, mostly for business owners or managers.
Which EU countries had the highest shares of smokers from 2006 to 2023?
ℹ️ Includes cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, pipes.
More info 👉 https://t.co/sWkMqWRm5r pic.twitter.com/WmBDDK1dTS
— EU_Eurostat (@EU_Eurostat) July 31, 2025
Enforcement of the smoking ban in Greece is inadequate
The government has since stepped up its enforcement, carrying out thousands of inspections and issuing hundreds of thousands of euros in fines.
Critics like Dr. Panagiotis Behrakis argue that enforcement is still not enough, pointing to businesses that circumvent the law by creating new enclosed smoking spaces.
Dr Behrakis’s directive, named Smoke Free Greece, is on a mission to persuade Greek citizens to stop smoking -and for young Greeks to never begin smoking- through a series of coordinated initiatives organized by the George D. Behrakis Research Lab, the Hellenic Cancer Society and the Institute of Public Health at The American College of Greece aiming to reduce smoking in our country.
On January 1st, 2025, the city of Milan banned outdoor smoking on streets and crowded public areas, Italy’s strictest smoking ban to date. The ban came on the heels of the European initiative for more stringent anti-smoking regulations and is anticipated to be the initial step towards more outdoor smoking prohibitions across the European Union.
Can Greece, an EU member with one of the highest smoking rates in Europe, follow suit?