The Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (‘Coreper’) gave the green light, on Friday 15 March, to the Interinstitutional Agreement reached between the Council of the EU and the European Parliament on 4 March, the ‘Packaging and Packaging Waste’ Regulation (see EUROPE 13364/8).
In the run-up to the outcome in Coreper, there were a number of uncertainties as to whether a majority of Member States would support the agreement. In order to secure the vote of the EU27, the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU had made a number of amendments, which do not change the substance of the text, but provide the clarifications that the Member States wanted. To achieve this, Parliament had to be consulted beforehand and gave its approval to the Presidency of the Council of the EU.
However, the pill is not going down well with the Commission, which regrets the “last-minute changes” made to the text, as well as the French amendment aimed at obliging third countries to comply with EU rules on the production of plastic packaging designed to protect goods. “Make no mistake, these last-minute changes to the Commission’s packaging proposal will have far-reaching ramifications for trade in the EU and for our partners around the world”, the European Commission Vice-President for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, told Bloomberg. For him, the agreement as ratified could penalise the poorest countries and increase the risk of legal recourse. Firstly, the text clarifies the mirror clause that was introduced in the text concerning recycled content, which will have to comply with the same rules whether it is produced within the EU or in third countries. This mirror clause, which is not to the Commission’s liking, also posed a problem for certain Member States.
A balance has therefore been struck on this point, which should satisfy the European Parliament, although some sources feared that the Commission would enter a formal reservation on the agreement. This would have meant that the agreement would have required the unanimous agreement of the Member States. A veto by one of them would then have brought down the overall agreement.
According to the amendments made to the provisional political agreement and adopted by the Member States’ ambassadors, the text now also stipulates that sectors that have obligations to use materials from recycled products will have priority access to recycled materials.
In addition, the text explicitly states that the costs of cleaning up litter can also be excluded from producer liability.
The text will now have to be validated by MEPs in the European Parliament committee before being put to the vote at the plenary session. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)