Poland is going to to challenge the EU ban on menthol cigarettes under EU law:
Poland will appeal to Europe's top court over a European Union ban on flavoured tobacco products, saying it will be unfairly affected as one of the region's biggest consumers and producers of menthol cigarettes.
The ban is a part of EU-wide anti-smoking legislation, due to be implemented in 2016, which also includes tougher rules on packaging and marketing.
Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy Janusz Piechocinski has said that menthol-flavoured cigarettes should be considered a traditional product - not unlike the Swedish "snus", powdered tobacco placed under the lip - and therefore exempt from the directive.
According to the World Lung Foundation, Poland remains one of the EU's heavy-smoking nations, with annual consumption of 1,586 cigarettes per capita - twice as large as Britain's.
But while the country's tobacco consumption rates are by no means extraordinary, its affection for menthol certainly is: nearly one in every five cigarettes sold here is menthol-flavoured, compared to one in ten in Sweden and below one in a hundred in Spain, Austria or Slovakia.
"Menthol cigarettes were introduced to Poland in 1953 and Polish smokers have developed a unique taste for them," said Magdalena Wlodarczyk, representing British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International, which together have 99% of the Polish market.
"There is no reason why they should get hit so hard over this."
As well as being a consumer, the country is also the second-largest producer of tobacco in the EU, with Polish tobacco farms employing over 60,000 people.
If any of you EU law experts out there are able to elaborate on the specific legal arguments Poland will be making, I'd love to hear about it.