By Euronews
Published on 17/03/2025 – 17:20 GMT+1•Updated
24/03/2025 – 17:19 GMT+1
ADVERTISEMENTAs the European Commission starts work on a major proposal for a Circular Economy Act intended to bolster and harmonise markets for recycled waste, lawmakers and industry representatives kick started the debate on Tuesday with a discussion that saw calls to stick to the second von der Leyen commission’s regulatory ‘simplification’ agenda.
With the Commission preparing to launch a ‘clean industry dialogue’ on circular economy as soon as May as a prelude to the fully fledged proposal be tabled at the end of next year, MEP Massimiliano Salini (EPP, Italy) hosted a debate in the European Parliament building in Brussels, in collaboration with the General Confederation of Italian Industry (Confindustria).
The EU has been pursuing a more circular economic model – as opposed to the prevailing linear ‘make, take, use, dispose’ for at least a decade, with 2015 seeing the first of two strategic plans that have already borne fruit in a range of policies, from recycling mandates to extended producers responsibility targeting areas such as fast fashion.
The term ‘simplification’ – which the Commission has adopted as its watchword in relation to easing the regulatory burden on European industry as it pursue competitiveness agenda – needs to apply to the rationalisation of circular economy policy, the chair of the European Parliament’s environment committee Antonio Decaro (S&D, Italy) said.
Decaro pointed to the way policy in this area is divided into “silos”, with a lock of harmonization between the requirements and objectives of various EU directives.
Taking the lead
Europe was a global leader in circular economy policy, the former mayor of the port city of Bari said, and not without reason: moving to a more self-contained model is essential not only for the environment, but for the EU to be self-sufficient in materials and energy. He implied this should be borne in mind regardless of ideological positions. “Whatever we think of climate change,” Decaro said, Europe needs to maintain a lead in circularity and related technology.
Salini pointed to the fragmented regulatory landscape current in place in Europe, using rules on recycling as an example – with different labelling requirements in different countries, where one might have a deposit-return scheme in place, and another a system of extended producer responsibility putting the onus on manufacturers. The net result is a set-up that resembles “a sort of return to internal customs duties”, he said.
Salini also took the opportunity to warn against attempts to backtrack on interinstitutional agreements between the European Parliament and governments in the EU Council in a process known as ‘trilogue’ talks – a phenomenon that was seen several times during the last legislative cycle, not least in the case of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, a key piece of the EU’s circular economy architecture.
Lara Ponti, Confindustria’s vice-president for Environmental Transition and ESG Objectives invited attendees and viewers to download a new study on industrial strategies and prospects for Europe’s burgeoning circular economy. She suggested that Italy was an example to follow, with a circularity rate in its economy of 20.8% almost double the EU average leading to savings of €16bn – a figure that could be increased to €119bn by 2030 in Italy alone.
Creating demand
“Circular industry is a reality already now, but as the big potential still to come,” Ponti said.
Her intervention followed by comments from Aural Ciobanu Dordea, who heads circular economy unit in the European Commission’s directorate-general for environment, and will play a key role in elaborating the Circular Economy Act proposal over the coming 18 months or so. The law will aim to streamline existing rules, playing into the simplification agenda that has become the hallmark of the second von der Leyen commission, he said.
“One of the most difficult nuts to crack on the front of circularity is the current imbalance between the price of virgin materials and the price of secondary raw materials,” Dordea said, explain the Commission’s focus on – as the Commission president put it in her mission letter to environment commissioner Jessika Roswall, creating “market demand for secondary materials and establish a single market for waste, notably in relation to critical raw materials”.
“We believe that here the right instrument is not to think about trade restrictions and export restrictions, but to think in terms of how can we create meaningful demand at European level for the recyclates: plastics, textiles, metals, aluminium and so on,” Dordea said. “We also see that the single market, in terms of critical raw materials and in particular secondary critical raw materials, is still at the beginning.”
Technological neutrality
The Commissioner’s indication of the EU executive’s direction of travel was followed by comments from half a dozen industry representatives from across sectors and the EU. If there was a common theme in statements that ranged from harsh criticism of the current fragmented state of circular regulation to calls for the easing of permitting procedures and a “technology neutral” approach to support to recycling technologies, it was again the call not to increase the regulatory burden on businesses.
Italy’s minister for environment and energy security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin gave a keynote speech at the event, referring to the shadow of war and increasing geopolitical and trade tensions that loom over the new Commission, and noting that the EU’s approach must be “adapted to what is the new reality”. But this did not mean abondining key EU goals such as climate neutrality by 2050, he said.
“Don’t question what should be the final objectives,” Pichetto Fratin said, describing Italy as “a country that suffers more than others from climate change” with the Mediterranean region experiencing temperature rise of some three degrees. He nevertheless took a swipe at the EU’s climate action strategy, singling a regulation promoting a switch to electric vehicles through strict CO2 emission limits which was stiffly opposed by Rome.
In closing remarks, Confindustria president Emanuele Orsini echoed this call for a less prescriptive in a more general sense. “We must remove the constraints on the use of technologies and use technological neutrality,” he said.