In a special audit report presented on Wednesday 26 November, the European Court of Auditors highlighted the delays encountered by many Member States in complying with European requirements on sorting and recycling municipal waste, which were tightened in 2018 (see EUROPE 12004/6).
According to the report, three countries - Germany, Austria and Slovenia - manage to recycle or compost more than 60% of the municipal waste they collect. In contrast, Romania, Greece, Malta and Cyprus still bury or incinerate over 80% of this type of waste.
The Court paid particular attention to the situation in Greece, Poland, Portugal and Romania. These countries risk failing to meet the 50% recycling target set for 2025, as well as the 65% target for recycling packaging waste (with the exception of Portugal).
As regards selective sorting, the situation varies greatly from one Member State to another. According to data from 2022 or 2023, differentiated waste collection accounted for 15% of waste in Romania, 18% in Greece, 24% in Portugal and 41% in Poland.
Several factors explain these delays, according to the European auditors. The countries evaluated underestimated the investment needed to meet the targets. Greece and Romania have not made sufficient use of the European funds available.
The European Commission has also been criticised. In the Court’s view, it was late in initiating infringement proceedings, as the first proceedings in respect of the 2018 European targets were not opened until 2024. Additional resources should also be allocated to the EU institution to carry out field missions on the basis of its June 2023 early warning reports (see EUROPE 13197/12). At that time, the EU institution had issued recommendations to the eighteen Member States at risk of missing any of the targets set for 2025.
The Court of Auditors identifies another challenge: the viability of the European recycling industry. Facilities are either rare in some Member States or threatened with closure, particularly those for plastics processing, due to rising costs, low demand for their products and imports of cheaper plastics from third countries.
The auditors also note the inadequacy of public funding to improve municipal waste management and the inability of stakeholders to make full use of economic instruments: deposit systems, increased tax on landfill sites, pricing based on the volume or weight of waste produced (‘pay-as-you-throw’ principle).
The ‘pay-as-you-throw’ principle is enshrined in the legislation of the four countries studied. But until 2024, it was not applied to households. Poland is even planning an unlimited exemption for this category of the population, and Portugal is exempting households from these charges until 2030.
“Fiscal incentives, as well as requiring citizens to pay for the volume or weight of waste they generate, can encourage them to separate and reduce waste”, said Stef Blok, the member of the Court responsible for the report, in a press release.
To see the Court of Auditors’ report: https://aeur.eu/f/job (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)