The EU Council bodies are preparing the EU’s position at the Fifth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5, Nairobi, 28 February-2 March), with a view to paving the way for the negotiation of a binding international agreement or instrument on plastic pollution.
In Nairobi, a resolution is to be adopted calling for the establishment of an intergovernmental negotiating committee and the EU27 are among the 70 countries that are already in favour of a future legally binding agreement, stressed the Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevičius, on 3 February during his official visit to the UN (see EUROPE 12884/6).
A guidance note from the French Presidency of the EU Council, currently under consideration by the Member States’ representatives in the Environment Working Group, adds elements as EU priorities to the draft document already validated at UN level in order to raise its ambition.
According to the guidance note, dated 1 February and seen by EUROPE, the EU, as a proponent of global environmental governance, is keen to ensure that the negotiating mandate of the international agreement/instrument makes clear reference to the full life cycle of plastics, including the upstream part of the life cycle, which is not addressed in any other existing international instrument.
In order to strengthen the binding character, the EU and its Member States are expected to advocate that the mandate should include a discussion on the obligations under the future global agreement/instrument.
They will reportedly insist on an explicit reference to microplastic pollution.
They will also ask that the mandate include references to the circular economy and ‘sustainable consumption and production’ as agreed concepts as well as ‘product design’. But this requirement would be secondary, the main thing being the mention of the full life cycle of plastics.
These are the main elements that the EU and its Member States are expected to seek to have included in the negotiating mandate.
In addition, the EU and the EU27 will opt for a negotiating mandate that is as open and flexible as possible, so that the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee would reserve the right to revisit these elements, should the EU and its Member States fail to win in Nairobi.
The draft EU position, which is currently being prepared, will still have to be validated by Member State experts and then by the EU Council.
See the guidance note of the French Presidency: https://aeur.eu/f/7m (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)