Brussels, 19 July 2023
This is part of a longer article which can be viewed here.
Three votes in Parliament this week on Europe’s new packaging law aim to favour the throwaway packaging industry and undermine measures to curtail record levels of waste.
Today, ITRE Committee voted with 58 in favour, 11 against and 3 abstentions on the report, led by Italian Socialist MEP Patrizia Toia which was voted as a single compromise.
Mirroring the requests of the laggards in the packaging industry, the report decimated ambitions on reuse and waste prevention, deleting all reuse targets for the HORECA sector as well as all 2040 reuse targets across sectors. Further key provisions were also removed from the proposal such as mandatory deposit return systems for beverages and most of the measures to tackle unnecessary packaging. The industry committee also moved the definition of recyclability from the Commission-led delegated acts to the European standardisation body CEN, an opaque industry led body unlikely to help remove all non-recyclable packaging from the market by 2030.
Marco Musso, Senior Policy Officer at the European Environmental Bureau said
“Today’s vote by the Industry committee undermines the objectives of the regulation without offering any credible solutions to reduce packaging waste. The environment committee and the whole Parliament must reject this irresponsible attempt to defend wasteful practices which have led to record levels of packaging waste and pollution. Decision-makers should resist vested interest and seize this opportunity to promote more sustainable packaging practices.”
Although leadership of the file remains with the Environment Committee who will not vote until September, the report sets a worrying tone for the landmark waste file. The result in ITRE could endanger key provisions until the plenary vote expected in autumn 2023. Campaigners had already warned that too much flexibility in the new packaging law risked repeating the mistakes of the existing directive by permitting a business as usual approach from packaging producers. Similarly, the removal of waste prevention measures will make it impossible for Member States to deliver on waste prevention targets also included in the proposal.
Discussions in the AGRI Committee are ongoing with a vote on their report, led by conservative MEP Salvatore De Meo, expected this afternoon. The report focuses on maximising flexibility on any provisions related to the food sector, including a raft of exemptions to reuse and waste prevention measures. The report also deleted reuse targets for 2040.
Source – EEB – Email