EU set to impose stringent rules on food packaging

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the EU business regulation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

The EU is poised to impose a de facto ban on the use of most plastic recycled outside the bloc in packaging for food and drink products after a last-minute push by France to amend a flagship law, according to European Commission officials.

Officials in the commission’s trade department are now involved in discussions with EU member states to try to remove the effective ban from the bloc’s proposed packaging legislation.

They said the last-minute French amendment to the law would drive up the price of everyday products in the EU, alienate the developing world and disrupt trade because so many imports to the bloc are wrapped in plastic.

The amendment was made in a provisional agreement between member states and the European parliament last week and would in effect block plastic that was recycled outside the EU and did not meet the bloc’s standards from being counted towards new environmental targets, according to commission officials.

The officials said very few recycling plants outside the EU would be able to comply with the bloc’s packaging legislation, and so their plastic products would in effect be banned in the bloc.

They added that a shortage of plastic compliant with the law would increase its price, with a knock-on effect on the cost of packaged products. 

But Pascal Canfin, the French MEP who chairs the parliament’s environment committee, defended the provisional agreement with member states and said that it was “completely unacceptable” that commission officials were calling EU capitals to “kill” it.

“We are creating a new market for recycled plastic with this regulation and we want to make sure there is a level playing field for our industry compared to imports,” he added.

The EU legislation, first proposed by the commission in 2022, aims to cut waste by setting targets for recycled content in packaging used for products sold in the bloc.

The legislation has been subject to intense lobbying due to its impact on a vast range of industries from hospitality to logistics.

The insertion of requirements by France to ensure that only imported recycled plastic made to the same standards as that in the EU is counted towards the bloc’s environmental targets is the result of an effort by Paris to safeguard domestic industry, according to commission officials and diplomats.

France, arguing domestic producers face higher costs because of EU regulation, has repeatedly advocated the use of so-called mirror clauses in new laws that would oblige third countries to follow the same production methods as those in the bloc.

But these clauses generally breach World Trade Organization agreements and have been resisted by more liberal EU member states, such as the Netherlands and Germany, and by the commission.

Several member states are concerned about the “mirror clause” in the EU packaging legislation and could reject it at a meeting on Friday where ambassadors are due to approve the law.

“We are worried about the implications and scrutinising the legislation,” said one EU diplomat. A majority of member states must back the law for it to be approved.

Lawyers for both the European Council and European parliament have deemed the provisional agreement on the EU legislation compliant with international trade rules.

The commission said it was “analysing” the agreement. A French official said recycling in line with EU standards was a priority for Paris.

EU recyclers have said that allowing recycled plastic from third countries without comparable environmental standards would pose an “existential threat” to the bloc’s domestic industry.

“We have invested massively in recycling capacity, which is currently idle due to a lack of demand [because] competition from recycled materials from low-cost countries is already an industrial reality,” said Sophie Sicard-Lemaire, deputy director of sustainable development and institutional affairs at French recycling company Paprec.

“It would be absurd for European consumers to finance the low-cost recycling of Asian packaging while, at the same time, the recycling of European packaging waste remains locked in a permanent price crisis.”

The EU recycling industry generates €10.4bn in revenue each year, according to Plastics Recyclers Europe, a trade body.

Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have the biggest number of plastic recycling facilities in the EU.