Environment Committee votes on packaging waste directive

摘要

The European Parliament's Environment Committee has voted to reinforce the European Commission's modest proposal to revise the targets set in the 1994 packaging directive and develop a more ambitious strategy for tackling the EU's growing amount of discarded packaging materials, incorporating prevention and producer responsibility. Following negotiations between the rapporteur, Dorette Corbey, and the political groups, MEPs adopted a report under the co-decision procedure, first reading, by three votes (25 to 22, with 5 abstentions), which contains over 40 amendments to the Commission's proposal. The committee backed Ms Corbey in raising the minimum target for recycling the 'totality of packaging materials contained in packaging waste' from the Commission's 55 per cent to 65 per cent (by weight) and in scrapping maximum targets. It left the Commission's overall recovery target and its individual recycling targets for the materials contained in packaging waste intact and put back the date for meeting the targets from 30 June 2006 to 31 December 2008.