Brussels, 08/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission on Monday welcomed the agreement reached in at the EP/Council Conciliation Committee over the review of the 1994 packaging waste directive. The agreement sets minimum recycling targets, raising them from 25 to 55% by 2008 and lifts the final obstacles that have persisted during long negotiations. Two issues remain to be settled, however, namely whether packaging waste that is incinerated should be considered 'added value' and when Greece, Ireland and Portugal will have to meet the directive's targets. According to the compromise agreement, packaging waste thrown away by consumers may no longer be included in the 'adding value' targets of the packaging directive. The European Court of Justice (CJ) ruled recently that incinerating municipal waste should be considered elimination if the main target of it was to eliminate waste. Some Member States have been including incineration as a way of meeting the EU's targets and are now failing to meet their targets because of the CJ ruling. The compromise would enable Member States to continue to incinerate while awaiting a reassessment of the issue. The date set for Greece, Ireland and Portugal to meet the targets is 2011.
The European Parliament's Green/EFA group slams the agreement which it describes as setting incineration on a par with recycling and thereby violating the spirit of a key Court of Justice ruling. Irish MEP Patricia McKenna, the only person to vote against the compromise on the Conciliation Committee, said she was shocked to see three European institutions agreeing to violate the Treaty and allow Member States to continue using incineration as a way of meeting packaging waste recycling targets.
Likewise, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) expressed grave concern at the decision since the compromise undermines the hierarchy of waste management at EU level by putting packaging incineration targets on a par with recycling techniques, explained Roberto Ferrigno of the EEB.