Brussels, 03/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - The circular economy package is at last on the table. The European Parliament was welcoming of this on Wednesday 2 December but gave a cautious reception to the action plan and the legislative proposals set out by European Commission Vice-Presidents Frans Timmermans and Jyrki Katainen in the plenary session in Brussels (see EUROPE 11444).
In the main, the satisfaction expressed was for the Commission's managing to bring forward the package within the set deadline of the end of the year, following the withdrawal, one year before, of the previous Commission's proposals. As for the content, Parliament wishes to study the proposals in closer detail before commenting. MEPs have, however, unlike Timmermans, already judged the new package to have failed on the promise of being “more ambitious” and highlight the failure to set targets for waste prevention, resource efficiency and reducing marine pollution.
It is, above all, the lowering of the waste recycling targets that was lambasted. The reason is that, in its resolution of July 2015 (EUROPE 11355), Parliament called for these targets to be revised upwards, with recycling and preparation for re-use of at least 70% of municipal solid waste and 80% of packaging materials by 2030, strict limits on incinerating recyclable and biodegradable waste by 2020 and a phasing in of a ban on landfilling by 2030. All of these targets were to be binding.
The EPP Group was the least critical, opining that the action plan provided a good starting point and that it was “time to start work”, according to Peter Liese (Germany). Antonio Tajani (Italy) saw the smarter use of resources as “a great opportunity for the competitiveness of EU businesses and a step forward for EU reindustrialisation strategy”.
Viewing the withdrawal of the initial proposals as “a mistake”, Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (ALDE, Netherlands) urged the Commission to go further, stating that his group would “fight with the Council”. Josu Juaristi Abaunz (GUE/NGL, Spain) criticised the “lack of detail” provided by the Commission “on the measures and application to bring about the systemic change required. Be more ambitious in prevention and sorting!” he implored. “We've wasted a year and a half”, lamented Davor Skrlec (Greens/EFA, Croatia), highlighting the “shortcomings on resource efficiency, the European semester, reducing marine pollution and reducing food waste”. He slammed the Commission for merely “reformulating the waste directive” and the rest, he said, was “action plans with no concrete measures and no guarantees of implementation”.
“Saying that waste is transformed into energy is fine, but our economy doesn't need incineration”, he added. Hans Olaf Henkel (ECR, Germany) made the point that incinerating PVC, advocated by some, runs “totally against the circular economy”. At a time when COP 21 is taking place in Paris, Gilles Pargneaux (S&D, France) laid emphasis on what the package could potentially bring in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and also on the EU's dependence on imported raw materials. Piernicola Pedicini (EFDD, Italy) was very unhappy at the lack of binding targets for recycling municipal waste and packaging, and the lack of a requirement to tackle food waste. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)