Italian lawmakers weigh on EU’s green packaging law ahead of key vote

Lawmakers in the European Parliament’s environment committee will vote on their approach to new rules tackling packaging waste on Tuesday (24 October) amid warnings from environmental groups that the law risks being watered down due to a concerted pushback from Italian MEPs.

The draft Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) was tabled in November 2022 as a way to combat growing waste, boost reuse, and promote recycling.

It has since been at the centre of a political fight, with fast food restaurants pushing back against mandatory packaging reuse targets and green activists warning that the law risks being diluted without a strong emphasis on reuse.

“If ambitious prevention and reuse provisions do not pass the vote in the environment committee, this whole journey we’ve undertaken to improve these rules may end up yielding no meaningful results. This is our biggest concern,” said Aline Maigret, head of policy at Zero Waste Europe, an environmental NGO.

Maigret says Parliament lawmakers have already watered down reuse targets compared to those proposed by the European Commission a year ago, a move she says reflects “worrying lobbying efforts” from the packaging industry and fast-food companies like McDonald’s.

“The unprecedented level of negative lobbying from single-use packaging and fast-food industry already resulted in a weakening of key waste prevention and reuse provisions compared with the original proposal,” said Marco Musso from the European Environmental Bureau, an umbrella group of dozens of green NGOs from across Europe.

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Lobbying push

Environmental NGOs are not the only ones to warn about the impact of industry lobbying.

Pascal Canfin, the chairman of the Parliament’s environment committee, also said the law had been “the subject of enormous lobbying by a number of companies, starting with the fast food sector”.

Canfin pointed to industry studies warning about the impact of the proposal “which may be questioned on ethical grounds” because they referred to own research that was based on confidential figures.

“Honestly, this is starting to sound like a farce,” said Canfin, adding that “under these circumstances, you can demonstrate anything and everything”.

Francesca Stevens, the secretary general of packaging industry group Europen, rejected accusations of unethical lobbying, saying “the packaging industry has constantly showed unwavering support for an ambitious revision of the PPWR.”

She added that the industry’s concerns are focused on some of the “purely political and ideological measures” still present in the European Parliament debate, such as bans and reuse targets, which are increasingly left to the discretion of EU countries.

“This would harm economic activities and jobs while at the same time [proving] detrimental to long-term sustainability targets,” she warned.

Italian influence

Canfin also pointed to the unusual influence of Italian lawmakers in the Parliamentary process, something he said was cause for concern since Italy has a “huge problem with reuse”.

Three of the Parliament’s political group negotiators on the file are Italian – Massimiliano Salini for the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), Pietro Fiocchi for the nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, and Silvia Sardone from the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID).

As so-called “shadow rapporteurs” in the environment committee, the three Italian MEPs have sought to influence the lead speaker on the file – Belgian MEP Frédérique Ries, who hails from Canfin’s centrist Renew Europe group.

“What’s more, all the Italian negotiators are members of governing parties” in Italy, Canfin remarked, saying that Ries has felt pressure from the Italian MEPs “on a daily basis”.

Environmental NGOs have also pointed to Italian influence reducing ambition in the draft regulation.

“The final compromises which the rapporteur MEP Ries will present at the vote represent a significantly reduced level of ambition, compared to the Commission’s proposal and the current text being discussed by the Spanish Presidency,” said Musso.

“This reduction of ambition has been driven particularly by strong Italian ideological opposition to the regulation’s goals of reducing unnecessary single-use packaging and encourage the uptake of reuse systems,” he added.

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Tight vote on Tuesday

Tuesday’s vote in the Parliament’s environement committee is likely to “come down to a few votes,” Canfin predicted, saying the outcome will depend on how many Italian MEPs decide to deviate from their party line.

“The EPP group may be divided because the very conservative Italian line is far from being unanimously supported by all the national delegations of the EPP,” Canfin told journalists at a press briefing on Friday (20 October). “And you have the Italian Socialists who might stand out within the Socialist Group,” he added.

As for his own Renew group, Canfin said the PPWR was mostly a “Nordic issue” – suggesting the Finns and Swedes have weighed more than others due to the size of the forestry sector in those countries. But he said the problems have been dealt with internally to ensure broad support for the Ries report among his faction.

However, environmental groups have already criticised the compromise proposals tabled by Ries and pointed to further amendments tabled by the EPP that bring more flexibility around packaging bans and reuse.

While green activists described the amendments as an “attempt to undermine reuse and waste prevention”, the industry welcomed it.

The amendments are “an important signal in favour of legislative measures that protect the agri-food system, consumer health, and virtuous recycling systems,” said Europen’s Stevens.

Tuesday’s vote risks “further exaggerating some of the more ideological aspects of the European Commission’s initial proposal, such as the bans on various types of packaging, and the reuse targets on a wide range of packaging types,” she told Euractiv.

Parliament split over how to tackle EU’s packaging waste problem

Lawmakers in the European Parliament are split over the best way to tackle Europe’s growing packaging waste problem, with reuse versus recycling at the heart of the debate.

**Additional reporting by Frédéric Simon

[Edited by Frédéric Simon/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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