An Internal Market Legal Basis to drive waste management step-change in the New Circular Economy Act
The undersigned industry associations express their strong support for the European Union’s ambitions for circularity. To achieve a true circular economy and a functioning European market for secondary raw materials, the upcoming New Circular Economy Act (CEA) must be grounded in an internal market legal basis (Article 114 TFEU).
Ambitious circular economy goals can only be met through harmonised rules driving a step-change in waste management across all of the EU. Today’s waste management landscape across the EU remains extremely fragmented, marked by uneven performance and divergent national regulatory frameworks. Nearly half of all EU countries still landfill more than 30% of their municipal waste, with four touching peaks between 60% and 80%[1]. When it comes to recycling, only nine Member States are expected to meet the 2025 recycling target[2].
The recent targeted revision of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) ultimately fell short in resolving the deep-rooted structural shortcomings that continue to hinder the efficiency of European waste management systems. The New CEA represents a unique opportunity to address these structural deficiencies by putting forward common rules to ensure that all Member States, rather than only a few front-runners, deliver against their respective circular economy goals. The lack of harmonised rules on waste management is not only undermining Europe’s ability to meet these goals collectively, but it is equally preventing it to create a Single Market for secondary raw materials. As acknowledged by the European Commission in the Single Market Horizontal Strategy[3], divergent waste rules are among the most reported Single Market barriers, so-called ‘Terrible Ten’. The implications of these barriers are thus environmental, economic and also geopolitical, because the result are increased external dependencies.
"Europe has a clear circularity ambition, but ambition alone is not enough. Moving from 12.2% [4] circularity today to 24% by 2030 requires a decisive break with business as usual. Progress is too slow and uneven, with waste management performance varying widely across the EU and still high landfilling rates in many Member States. This creates serious challenges for the packaging value chain and for the EU’s circularity objectives. Ambition must be matched by delivery, which means backing the circular economy agenda with harmonised rules under Article 114 that reduce fragmentation, drive investment, and deliver real results on the ground. Europe needs to walk the talk and turn its circular economy goals into action,” says the Secretary General of EUROPEN, Francesca Stevens.
We strongly believe that the Commission must stand firm in the drafting of CEA and push-back on any attempts to weaken its ambition disguised as flexibility, under the pretext of defending national specificities. The end goal should be to ensure that the laggards catch-up with the front-runners and that, ultimately, all Member States do their parts in achieving the circular economy goals. Any calls for the introduction of Article 192 TFEU (environmental protection) as a legal basis should be rejected as this will further exacerbate the current situation, create legal uncertainty about the residual responsibilities of Member States and adversely impact efforts to support the EU’s transition to a circular and climate-neutral economy.
With broad stakeholder support across Europe, we urge the EU Commission and co-legislators to uphold in its entirety the internal market legal basis, which is best suited to serve the objectives of the future CEA.
Read the full statement here
[1] Municipal waste landfill rates in Europe by country (2010 and 2023) | Diversion of waste from landfill in Europe | European Environment Agency (EEA)
[2] A 2025 report from the EU Court of Auditors on municipal waste management found that only 9 out of 27 Member States are likely to meet their 2025 recycling target of municipal waste, with many Member States facing challenges to progress towards circularity, mainly due to financial constraints and weaknesses in planning and implementation. It added that, despite having strengthened targets and other legal requirements, the Commission was late in initiating infringement proceedings regarding missed waste targets. See here
[3] The Single Market: our European home market in an uncertain world. A Strategy for making the Single Market simple, seamless and strong” here; Section 6 Fragmented rules on packaging, labelling and waste.
[4] The European Commission’s Single Market and Competitiveness Annual Report