Ambitious and further efforts are needed to harness the potential of the circular economy to combat biodiversity loss and climate change and accelerate the EU's transition to a truly circular economy, EU Environment Ministers stressed on Friday 4 October in Luxembourg.
The conclusions adopted by the EU Council encourage the Commission and Member States to complete the implementation of the 2015 Action Plan and urge the Commission to continue its work on the interface between EU legislation on chemical substances, products and waste. The EU Council stresses the importance of infrastructure investments to stimulate innovation, the creation of markets for quality secondary materials and circular service-oriented business models.
The EU Council supports the work of the Circular Alliance on Plastics and welcomes its recent statement on voluntary commitments to use ten million tonnes of recycled plastic each year to manufacture new products by 2025 (see EUROPE 12339/17).
It calls on the Commission to present an ambitious long-term strategic framework for the circular economy, with a common vision, policy instruments and a monitoring framework. It hopes that the Commission will adopt a new action plan without delay, in close cooperation with the various stakeholders, establishing clear links with climate change, biodiversity, the bio-economy, digitalisation and industrial policy.
The EU Council identifies the construction and infrastructure, food, textiles and transport sectors as the next priority areas for action (see EUROPE 12295/7). It urges the Commission to support the circularity of construction products, possibly by amending the regulation on them, and calls for an EU strategy on textiles. The EU Council also calls for the full implementation of the plastics strategy and its extension to the packaging, construction, automation, electronics, textiles and agriculture sectors. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)