A week after the European Parliament and Council agreed on a final Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) text, its approval should have been a mere formality.
Yesterday, however, it seemed ‘unlikely’ the text would receive the backing of a qualified majority of EU governments at today’s meeting of permanent representatives.
Sources within the European Parliament, Council, and Commission said it would be ‘difficult’ to gather enough support, according to reports by Euronews and Politico.
But the final text has just been confirmed, the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU announced on X, previously Twitter.
Now that a majority of EU governments signed off on the text, the PPWR can now finally be formally adopted.
Disagreement over import recycled plastic clause
As of yesterday, European Commission officials were ‘confident’ they had persuaded enough governments to oppose the law.
The European Commission had withheld its support for the final PPWR text since the Council and Parliament agreed on it last week.
The culprit is a clause introduced at the eleventh hour in the final text at the hands of France.
The so-called ‘mirror clause’ states that if imported plastic is to count towards meeting the PPWR’s recycling content targets, it must be collected in line with EU standards for separate collection and then processed in facilities that comply with the same pollution and emissions limits that apply to domestic producers.
As few recycling plants outside of the EU comply with its standards, the clause would effectively impose a ban on imported recycled plastics.
The measure is intended to protect European plastic recyclers from rising amounts of cheap recycled resin imported into the block and has been strongly defended by industry representatives.
‘Dire trade and diplomacy’ consequences
However, the European Commission took issue with the clause and did not yet give its support to the final text.
According to sources heard by Euronews, the Commission’s directorate-general for trade (DG TRADE) has since privately lobbied to stall the legislation, warning of ‘potential dire trade and diplomacy issues if the law is adopted in its current form’, the Euronews report says.
DG TRADE claims that the ‘mirror clause’ would drive up packaged product prices, disrupt trade, and could unfairly discriminate against developing countries.
Pascal Canfin, the French MEP who chairs the European Parliament’s environmental committee, said it is ‘completely unacceptable’ that commission officials are trying to influence country’s positions, according to reports by the Financial Times and Politico.
What next?
The Commission officials’ efforts seem to have been insufficient and the PPWR should now move ahead, including the clause which will effectively impose a ban on imported recycled plastics.
Sustainable Plastics will update this article more details become available.
The agreement must be approved in the April plenary, the last before EU elections. It must then be formally adopted by the European Parliament and Council, following revision by lawyer-linguists, before it can be published in the EU’s Official Journal and enter into force.