The European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Health and Food Safety (ENVI) has significantly strengthened the proposed December 2020 EU regulation on batteries and battery waste, which aims to boost the circular economy by covering the entire life cycle of batteries and to foster the EU’s strategic autonomy by developing a genuine European market for sustainable batteries.
The amended report by Simona Bonafè (S&D, Italy) (see EUROPE 12811/4) was adopted on Thursday 10 February by 74 votes to 8 with 5 abstentions. All compromise amendments were voted.
MEPs support stricter waste collection targets for portable batteries (70% by 2025, compared to 65% in the Commission’s proposal, and 80% by 2030, compared to 70%).
In addition, the report introduces minimum collection rates for batteries for light transport (75% by 2025 and 85% by 2030).
For the MEPs, all waste automotive batteries, industrial batteries and batteries from electric vehicles should be collected.
Furthermore, they support carbon footprint declaration and labelling, a maximum carbon footprint value over the whole life cycle of batteries and minimum levels of cobalt, lead, lithium or nickel from waste in new batteries.
By 2024, portable batteries, such as those in smartphones, and batteries for light transport should be designed so that consumers or independent operators can remove or replace them easily and safely, say the MEPs.
They also stress the need to assess the feasibility of introducing standards for common chargers for various rechargeable batteries.
They want that all economic operators placing batteries on the EU market comply with the risk management requirements associated with the sourcing, processing and trade of raw materials, chemical substances and secondary raw materials. They also call for the battery industry to comply with internationally recognised due diligence standards throughout their value chain.
The European Parliament will vote on this issue in March. The French Presidency hopes that the Member States will reach an agreement at the Environment Council of the EU on 17 March (see EUROPE 12878/15).
The European battery industry expressed concern about the outcome of the vote: “the Committee’s amendments make the Regulation more complex to implement with not yet predictable distortions, undermine in some cases the original objectives of the measure (e.g. carbon footprint), create more uncertainty for the industry and likely establish an uneven playing field with imported products”, commented the RECHARGE Secretary General, Claude Chanson, in a statement. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)