By adopting the report by Anna Zalewska (ECR, Polish) almost unanimously (82 votes in favour, none against and 2 abstentions) on Tuesday 24 October, the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment (ENVI) expressed its support for the targeted revision of Directive 2012/19/EU on the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).
The aim of this targeted revision is to bring the directive into line with a ruling by the Court of Justice which invalidated unjustified retroactive provisions for producers of photovoltaic panels (see EUROPE 12876/26). The Council of the EU gave its opinion in June (see EUROPE 13204/6).
With regard to the future revision of the directive, already envisaged to remedy any shortcomings (see EUROPE 13203/30), MEPs call on the European Commission to assess the need for a revision by 31 December 2026 at the latest and, if appropriate, to present a legislative proposal, accompanied by a thorough socio-economic and environmental impact assessment.
They also call for care to be taken to ensure that the costs of managing WEEE are not disproportionately passed on to consumers or citizens, which means taking into account the polluter pays principle, addressing any provisions relating to collection targets and respecting the waste hierarchy defined in Article 4 of the Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC).
View the compromise amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/98m (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)