Beer makers lament Council’s wine, spirits exemption from EU packaging rules

Wine and spirits should be exempt from future EU repackaging rules, EU environment ministers decided on Monday (18 December), angering beer producers who will have to comply with the new rules which include a new deposit system.

Read the original French article here.

Based on a text presented by the Commission in November 2022 and voted on by the European Parliament in the autumn, EU environment ministers agreed by qualified majority on a “common approach” to exclude wine and spirits from these EU targets for bottle recycling and the introduction of a deposit system.

“There is no reason why beer should be subject to targets for reuse and deposit systems while other sectors such as wine and spirits are exempt,” complained the European brewers’ organisation Brasseurs d’Europe, which represents more than 10,000 European breweries, on Monday evening (18 December).

The draft EU regulation on packaging and packaging waste (PPWR) aims to tackle the increase in packaging waste generated in the EU and promote the circular economy.

While it maintains the Commission’s key targets – 5% less packaging waste by 2030 and 15% by 2040 – ministers were pleased to have voted in favour of a “compromise” text with some adjustments, such as giving EU countries more flexibility in implementing the regulation.

“Today’s general approach gives a strong message that the EU is committed to reducing and preventing packaging waste from all sources,” stressed Spanish Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera, who also chaired the Environment Council.

Addressing EU ministers on packaging waste on Monday, Ribera pointed out that each European will generate 190 kg of packaging waste in 2021, a figure that could increase by 20% by 2030.

Derogation for wine and spirits

One of the main objectives of the text is to generalise bottle reuse so that 10% of alcoholic beverages can be reused by 2030 and 25% by 2040.

This applies to all alcoholic beverages except wine and spirits, for which the targets are halved: 5% by 2030 and 15% by 2040. Sparkling wine is wholly excluded.

While reusing wine bottles is growing in Europe – partly because of rising production costs – the practice is struggling to take off.

Many producers are reluctant to accept additional constraints, such as changing the label and losing the originality of their bottles.

During the discussions, most ministers supported the exemptions set out in Article 26 of the EU’s Packaging Waste Regulation, which covers wine and cardboard.

At the same time, Inga Bērziņa, Latvian Minister of Environmental Protection and Regional Development, pointed out that imposing such bottle reuse targets on the wine sector would entail “disproportionate costs by preventing competitiveness”.

“Cider, beer and other spirits have 90% reusable packaging. This is not the case for wine,” she added.

In a statement, European spirits representative SpiritsEUROPE welcomed the text exempting spirits from mandatory reuse targets.

“This is the most sensible and sustainable approach forward – and will help preserve bottle diversity in the future while delivering real sustainability benefits on the ground,” said Sarah Melina Siebel, Internal Market and Sustainability Director at SpiritsEUROPE.

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“Discrimination”

However, some ministers have also pointed to potential differences in treatment between different alcoholic beverages.

For Finnish Environment and Climate Change Minister Kai Mykkänen, exemptions should take into account the characteristics of packaging types, not just products.

In his view, exemptions should be “justified by environmental impact analyses”.

Anita Sowinska, Poland’s undersecretary of state for climate and environment, said: “Products packaged in the same way should be subject to the same rules because they pollute in the same way.”

She also pointed to possible “discrimination” against other sectors. This term was also used by her Slovakian counterpart.

“We insist on the need to guarantee fair conditions and rules: in this respect, craft beers must be treated in the same way as wines,” stressed Belgium’s David Clarinval.

Call for an “equitable” regulation

But according to Brasseurs d’Europe, the text adopted by the Council creates an “uneven playing field”, it said in a recently published press release.

“The lack of a level playing field is discriminatory and, as currently written, the rules do not align with ECJ [Court of Justice of the EU] rulings and the EU’s Single Market basics of fair treatment amongst competing products, such as beer and wine,” said the organisation, which believes that exemptions should apply to all producers and not just a few.

But for Brasseurs d’Europe’s operations director, Simon Spillane, “if this is not addressed, then brewers will be the only major alcoholic drink sector facing these extra demands and costs. That would be an egregious discrimination.”

Meanwhile, Ribera expressed her desire to see an agreement reached during the inter-institutional trilogue negotiations between the Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament before the EU elections next June.

In the meantime, the European Commission has been asked to review the derogations.

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[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

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