The European Parliament is in talks with the Council of Ministers over an amendment proposed by Dutch MEP Dorette Corbey to increase the packaging waste recovery targets for Member States. Although the two sides have provisionally accepted targets including 60% overall recovery by weight and 55% overall recycling by December 2008, the full details are yet to be finalised.
However, according to the MEP for South England, Dr Caroline Jackson, the process has “run aground” because of a European Court of Justice ruling that could result in the incineration of packaging waste not counting towards packaging recovery targets (see letsrecycle.com story).
Speaking at Technology, Environment, Corporate Live conference in Birmingham on Tuesday, Dr Jackson said: “We have temporarily suspended our negotiations in the second reading while the Commission finds out the Member States’ reaction to the Court of Justice Judgement.”
She explained: “This is because policy making has been thrown into disarray by a judgement of the Court of Justice that appears to rule out the idea that the incineration of packaging waste with energy recovery can always count as 'recovery', rather than 'd;isposal'. Those countries relying on incineration as a means of waste disposal then found that they might run foul of the proposed directive because they would miss the 'recovery' targets.”
It is thought that countries like Denmark could fail recovery targets if the Court of Justice decision rules out incineration of packaging waste counting towards recovery targets. Dr Jackson said that the Commission, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers could all pledge to ignore the Court's ruling on incineration.
Dr Jackson said: “If necessary all three institutions will sign up to a memorandum of understanding, implicitly saying the Court was wrong, but the issue remains unresolved.”
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