Politics

The European Commission today proposed an amendment to the EU Climate Law, setting a 2040 EU climate target of 90% reduction in net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, compared to 1990 levels, as requested by the Commission Political Guidelines for 2024-2029.

The Commission encourages Member States to make full use of the existing possibilities to support the circular economy and will treat such cases as a priority.

FEAD welcomes the Council’s adoption of a General Approach on the proposed End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation (ELVR), but underlines several problematic clauses that need to be remedied during the Trilogue. While acknowledging the importance of progress in the legislative process, FEAD warns that diluting minimum recycled content targets and timelines undermines the Regulation’s ability to deliver true circularity in the automotive sector.

Today, Europe’s Environment Ministers bowed to pressure from the automotive industry by voting to weaken a crucial regulation to make the sector more circular, warn environmental NGOs.

Legal requirements, above all the EU packaging and packaging waste directive (PPWR), and the sustainability goals of global brands are increasing the demand for post-consumer recycled pellets to be used in sensitive applications such as food or cosmetics packaging, as well as in secondary packaging. These specifications increase the demands on the production capacity and process stability of recycling plants in order to guarantee high output volumes with a consistently high quality.

EU Member States have significantly closed the gap to achieving the 2030 energy and climate targets, according to the European Commission’s assessment of the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs).

Against a background of global concerns about trade tariffs put in place and planned by the US administration, the BIR World Recycling Convention in Valencia has heard that eventually a 10% tariff level might prevail.

A new coalition on green public procurement (GPP) — Buy Better to Build Better (BBBB) — has been launched on May 20 at an event in the European Parliament. Bringing together 35 stakeholders from across the construction value chain, civil society, and public authorities, the coalition aims to make green public procurement the default approach in Europe’s construction sector.

European recyclers are facing a severe and deepening recession, with businesses being increasingly forced to shut down. This trend threatens to accelerate Europe’s deindustrialisation and undermines the EU’s environmental and circular economy goals. In response, Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) has released a position paper outlining six strategic areas for immediate action that must be urgently applied to prevent the collapse of the European plastics recycling industry.

A broad coalition of circular economy stakeholders, led by Tomra, today calls on the European Commission to integrate provisions that support circularity measures under the draft Clean Industrial State Aid Framework (CISAF). Despite being recognised as one of the four pillars of the Clean Industrial Deal, circularity is notably absent from the CISAF’s core provisions.

The widespread use of PFAS polymers in everything from consumer products to green technologies can lead to contamination of water, air, soil, food, and people. A European Environment Agency (EEA) assessment says that these chemicals can also contribute to global warming and ozone depletion.