WEST Midlands MEP Nikki Sinclaire will today join a number of MEPs in delivering a letter on behalf of e-cigarette users across the European Union.

The We Demand a Referendum Now MEP has been vocal in her opposition to an EU e-cigarette ban and a video she produced for YouTube on the subject has had more than 3,000 views.

The EU, as part of its Tobacco Directive, seeks to class e-cigarettes as a medicinal product. Some e-cigarette users fear tests these products will need to go through will effectively price them out of the market.

Ms Sinclaire said: “Users of e-cigarettes have contacted me in their thousands. This community, known as vapers, have been calling for MEPs to block this new legislation as they believe that it will be detrimental to the people who choose to use them.”

The proposed EU Tobacco Directive aims to make smoking, in all its forms, less attractive to young people to discourage them from taking it up. The draft EU Tobacco Directive seeks to ban e-cigarettes.

The electronic cigarette market in Europe last year was worth 400 to 500 million euros. In the UK by the end of 2013, almost one million people will be using electronic cigarettes or will have tried them.

Updated regulations regarding tobacco products would ban anything with a nicotine level of over 4mg per ml being sold unless it was officially licensed as medicinal. Stop smoking products, such as patches, fall within existing rules and would remain unaffected.

If the measures are agreed, they would need to pass through the long process in which drugs are certified. Such processes can be expensive and put into question the commercial viability of e-cigarettes.

Ms Sinclaire added: “If we take a step back, shouldn’t we be asking who should be making the rules? Is it up to the European Parliament in Brussels to decide or our elected Parliament in Westminster?

“It seems funny MEPs get to make the decision on this issue, when MEPs themselves are allowed to smoke in bars in the Parliament.”