Once the European Commission presented its proposal for a revamp of the bloc’s rules on packaging and packaging waste in November, the work on the legislative project has shifted to the EU Parliament and Council. For Sweden, which assumed the rotating Presidency of the European Council at the beginning of 2023, it will be a priority to make as much progress as possible, said Patrik Brodd, Sweden’s representative in the Council’s Working Party on the Environment (WPE) for the areas waste, chemicals and climate change. His comments were made an event in Brussels in early February hosted by the cross-fraction working group of the EU Parliament (EP Intergroup) for climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development.
At the meeting of the EU Environment Council in mid-March, Sweden plans a policy debate about the Commission's proposal for an EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), Mr Brodd said. He said member states as had a high level of interest and commitment. The proposal was very comprehensive, containing many, and it would take some time to work through it, he said.
One of the key topics for the working group is the setting of recycled content targets for specific types of packaging. There was a clear link here to the EU’s Waste Shipments Regulation (WSR), particularly with regard to exports of plastic waste, according to Mr Brodd. Mr Brodd is also accompanying the proposed WSR amendment in the WPE. Recycling and reuse are also “hot topics", with numerous opinions about the benefits of reuse and about packaging materials, the Swedish official said.
Mr Brodd believes many representatives in the WPE support the principles underlying the proposal and its “potential to form a common regulatory framework.” Now, the task was to find a common understanding of the proposed legislation in detail and how it will work out in order to “find as broad a majority as possible,” Mr Brodd said....
