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The plans for a Europe-wide mandatory deposit went one step ahead – what is the current state?
After more than four years of intensive discussions, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament have agreed on a provisional version of a new European Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) in the trilogue procedure.
Like many other market and system participants, the DPG was involved in the preparation of the specifications with proposals.
Up until the current status, all aspects that are of importance from the DPG’s point of view have been included in the compromises:
- With the introduction of mandatory deposits throughout Europe, existing deposit systems such as DPG's should be allowed to retain their regulations and thus successfully established operating methods (structural protection)
- Member states now have the option of taking into account a 0.1 l minimum fill quantity for single-use beverage containers subject to mandatory deposit (exemption option)
- Exemptions from minimum requirements for existing and well-functioning deposit systems should exist
- There will be no fixed requirements for communication costs
- Tax regulations on the deposit amount have been canceled
- Transnational interoperability is limited to border regions and initially to the return of foreign deposit containers without mandatory deposit compensation.
From the DPG's point of view, these changes would be a significant step in the right direction.
What are the next steps, who decides on the compromise-paper and when will the new packaging regulation apply?
Despite ongoing discussions, it is assumed that the PPWR will essentially be adopted. There is therefore also a high probability that the compromises on the deposit regulations will prevail until the final adoption.
The European Parliament will meet again on April 24, 2024. Many observers currently assume that the trilogue result will be voted on in a so-called corrigendum procedure. This means that the existing (old) Parliament will only vote on the provisional trilogue result in its English language version at the meeting on April 24, as not all language versions have yet been translated. The procedure will then continue over the summer, and after the EU elections in June, the new European Parliament will vote on the final trilogue result on the PPWR at the end of the year or beginning of next year, followed by the Council of the European Union. Many of these new rules would then apply around 18 months later.
In the case that all language versions can be translated by April 24, 2024 and the European Parliament can conduct a direct final vote, the timetable until the regulation enters into force would be shortened accordingly.
Germany, as the largest economy in the EU, can look back on almost 20 years of experience and success in this area. Every year, around 20 billion single-use beverage containers are processed via more than 40,000 reverse vending machines and supplementary counting centers using the DPG system. The return rates of more than 98% underline the broad consumer acceptance and the ecological success of the system, which thus makes a significant contribution to reducing waste and conserving resources.
An overview of all sustainability aspects within our system is provided here.