News
06 Oct 2023

The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation Negotiations Continue

After a quiet summer break, negotiations on the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) have resumed in full speed, notwithstanding the postponement of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI) vote by one month and now scheduled to take place on 24 October 2023. The vote in plenary should then take place on 20 November, when the position of the EU Parliament will be officially adopted. It remains to be seen if Member States in Council will adopt their General Approach (political agreement on the text at Council level) by December, officially giving start to the interinstitutional negotiations.  

There is still an open question on whether (or to which extent) the ENVI Committee will be accommodating the positions adopted by the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) and by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) - which have shared competence with ENVI on key articles such as Article 26 on reuse, Article 22 on packaging restrictions and Article 11 on labelling. Meanwhile, national experts are continuing to work on the text in the Council Working Party on Environment, under the coordination of the Spanish Presidency. 

The state of the ongoing negotiations, both in the European Parliament and Council, remains a source of concern for the packaging value chain, including – just to name a few stumbling blocks:  

  • The incorporation of measures in the text enabling Member States to legislate unilaterally, and continuous discussions on the split of the proposal’s legal basis 
    • Moving away from the internal market legal basis of the current PPWD and proposed PPWR, or opting for a dual one, would increase fragmentation and pave the way for a patchwork of national packaging legislations that will thwart the Regulation’s aim of a return to binding and uniform packaging rules in the EU internal market. 
    • Certain provisions of the PPWR proposal, and provisions introduced during the negotiations, would allow Member States to maintain or adopt specific requirements at national level. Those are concerning as they risk to fragment the Single Market, and are contrary to the spirit of harmonisation underlying the proposal. They are, in particular: Article 4(4), Article 11(8), Article 38(5), and Article 45(2)(c) of the proposal, and any references to “at least” in the reuse targets of Article 26, as proposed by the European Parliament and Council.   
  • The absence of framework conditions in the text enabling effective and in practice recycling at scale.
    • To ensure packaging is effectively recycled at scale from 2035, enabling conditions are necessary. It would be unjustified to ban packaging that is perfectly recyclable if not recycled at scale from 2035. The first step to recycling is collection, and all packaging complying with Design for Recycling criteria adopted on the basis of Article 6.4 shall be collected for recycling. Incentive to increase investments in sorting and recycling, and predictability of volumes collected, would support the achievement of EU’s packaging recycling targets, and complement industry’s continuous investments in packaging design and recycling innovations.  
  • The unjustified restrictions of packaging formats under Article 22/Annex V put forward in the Commission proposal, as well as the inclusion of additional restrictions in the ENVI Committee compromise amendments, are not supported by evidence as to their impacts on the environment nor safety and resilience of food systems.  
  • Reuse targets not formulated on the basis of sound impact assessments and scientific evidence.
    • Reuse targets should be feasible and it should be ensured that, when mandated by law: 1) they represent the best environmental option considering the whole life cycle of packaging, including logistics pathways and use-case scenarios; 2) they are based on proper impact assessment and a clearly defined methodology; 3) they do not negatively impact the resilience of EU food systems.  

In EUROPEN’s view, a way to solve those concerns is for the ENVI Committee to further consider the work done by the ITRE Committee, which significantly improved the original legislative proposal. Omitting to integrate its proposed amendments would be a missed opportunity. 

WHAT DID YOU MISS? 

  • 01 July 2023 - 31 December 2023: Spanish Presidency of the Council 
  • 14 July, 15 September, 29 September 2023: Discussions on the PPWR proposal in the Council Working Party on Environment 

 WHAT’S NEXT? 

  • 24 October 2023: European Parliament’s ENVI Committee vote on its PPWR report 
  • 24 October 2023: Discussion on the PPWR proposal in the Council Working Party on Environment (tbc) 
  • 20 November 2023: Plenary vote on the European Parliament’s final PPWR report 
  • 01 January – 30 June 2024: Belgian Presidency of the Council 
  • 22 - 25 April 2024: Last European Parliament plenary session of the 9th term