The report was expected to be adopted on the nod at the Parliament's session last week in Strasbourg, but more than 90 MEPs staged a procedural ambush. Time will now have to be found at the next session, which runs from November 12-15 for a full
debate.
Seven years into the life of the 1994 EU Directive on Packaging and
Packaging Waste, the parliament's Environment Committee launched an inquiry earlier
this year into the impact of the legislation. A key reason for the inquiry was the European Commission's failure to propose – and clinch new waste reduction targets for the period 2001-2006, a procedure supposed to have been completed by January 1 this year.
The committee wants new strategies for reducing waste at source by setting
prevention targets and re-use targets for each form of packaging material.
Author of the report, Dutch MEP Dorette Corbey argues: “Revision of current
targets is not sufficient to make packaging in the EU more sustainable.
The coming years need to be used to develop an ambitious approach.”
As to whether the 1994 directive had made a big difference, she points out
that most EU states already had their own national legislation and targets. But
getting an overall picture is not easy because some states have failed to
report their strategies to Brussels.
There have also been delays: only Germany correctly transposed the
directive into national legislation by the end of 1996. Most other states missed the
deadline by up to 2 years. Greece has yet to confirm that its national legislation
complies with EU requirements.
Dorette Corbey adds that by 1997, the EU was supposed to agree a mandatory system
of identifying marks for packaging materials. But Brussels did not publish proposals until late 1996 – and the EU Council of Ministers has yet to agree a “common position”.
To bridge the gap, the Commission was forced to introduce a voluntary
system for identifying materials. (Commission Decision 97/229/EC).
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