05/06/2023 (Agence Europe) – Despite difficulties, negotiations on a binding UN treaty on plastic pollution remain on track. The second round of negotiations (INC-2), which ended on 2 June in Paris (see EUROPE 13190/14), mandated the intergovernmental negotiating group to present a ‘zero draft’ by November. The European Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevičius, welcomed the decision. “We’ve made significant headway in the plastics negotiations in Paris. A mandate for a first draft of the new treaty before Nairobi this fall has been secured”, he declared on Twitter. In Greenpeace’s view, however, “it is clear from this week’s negotiations that oil-producing countries and the fossil fuel industry will do everything in their power to weaken the treaty and delay the process” so as not to reduce plastic production. (AN)