EU’s plastic strategy at risk, warn EU Auditors

Article published in Brussels Morning

Today, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) published a review claiming “there is a significant risk that the EU will not meet its plastic packaging recycling targets for 2025 and 2030.” At stake is the EU Action to tackle plastic packaging waste under the European Green Deal (EGD). In the EU, more than 60% of plastic waste still comes from packaging, but only 40% of that packaging is recycled. 

Describing the new recycling targets for plastic packaging as “a daunting challenge”, Samo Jereb, the Member of the ECA responsible for the review, pointed out how the EU must reverse the current practice “whereby we incinerate more than we recycle.” He noted pointedly that by “resuscitating single-use habits amid sanitary concerns, the COVID pandemic shows that plastics will continue to be a mainstay of our economies, but also an ever-growing environmental threat.”

The European Commission (EC) adopted its plastics strategy in 2018, updating the 1994 Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and doubling the current recycling target to 50% by 2025 and to 55% by 2030.

However, according to the ECA, nearly a third of the Union’s reported plastic packaging recycling rate is achieved through reliance on shipments to non-EU countries for recycling. As of January 2021, under the soon to be enforced Basel Convention, most plastic waste shipments will be banned. This, combined with the lack of capacity to treat plastic waste within the EU, constitutes another risk to achieving the new targets.

Commission’s delicate ambitions

On 11 March, the European Commission (EC) published its “New Circular Economy Action Plan” listing some 50 actions to combat the ever-growing plastic waste being generated by humans. One of the most positive actions is the pledge to develop new measures on making products more sustainable. To achieve this, on 15 September, the EC launched the “Sustainable products initiative” which aims at revising the Eco design directive. 

The objective is to not only to design a good strategy but also how to operationalize it effectively from a financial and infrastructural perspective. Frans Timmermans, the EU Commissioner in charge of the Green Deal, will elaborate on this at the Budapest Climate Summit when he talks about how the Commission intends to deliver on its green goals.  Soon, the EU executive is expected to launch a renewed sustainable finance strategy, a crucial initiative that will outline how to underwrite the sustainable transition.

In 2018, the EC put forward “A European Strategy for plastics in the circular economy — Local and regional dimension” in line with the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Shortly afterwards, In December 2018, the Commission created the Circular Plastics Alliance to help plastics value chains boost the EU market for recycled plastics to 10 million tonnes by 2025. 

In 2015, Jean-Claude Junker’s Commission delivered the circular economy action plan, which outlined the bloc’s first ecological objectives. These covered the cycle from production and consumption, to waste management and the market for secondary raw materials. The EU’s circular economy gained momentum with the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2016. 

Rethink Plastic Alliance calls for more

However, despite all the green initiatives and its green ambitions, NGOs ask for more from the EU exectutive. 

The Rethink Plastic Alliance welcomed the Commission’s plans to curb plastic pollution but it showed reservations, in particular with regards as to how the Commission intends to set a policy framework for bio-based and biodegradable plastics. “These plastics, which are too often pushed as a solution, are mostly applied as single-use materials with similar environmental impacts to conventional plastics, especially in the ocean,” they warned.

The Alliance accused the Commission of confounding consumers by referring to a “direct substitution of conventional plastics with bio-based and biodegradable plastics” claiming that it will “amount to greenwashing.” The plastics network called on the EC to develop EU legislative measures to address pollution from all primary microplastics.

EU’s watchdog remains sceptical 

The EU’s watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has raised questions regarding the overall “official version” of the EGD. “The fingerprints of industry, and in particular the fossil fuel industry, can be seen all over the EGD,” the CEO reports in a research paper.

“In spite of all its rhetoric, the EGD does not seek to transform, but rather to accommodate, the status quo. It does not rethink the economic system that is the root cause of the climate, ecological, and financial crises. It continues to promote economic growth while seeking to manage the environmental and social impact,” the CEO analysis declared.

The EU watchdog body noted that the EGD is the number one most lobbied-on topic in Brussels, pointing out how, in the first 100 days after the Green Deal was announced on 11 December 2019, key members of the Commission in charge of the deal met with business interest representatives 151 times, roughly 11 meetings a week. “They only met 29 times with public interest representatives, which is about two meetings a week,” CEO commented.

“The fossil fuel industry wants the EGD to focus on ‘solutions’ that allow them to keep their business model, based on the extraction and production of fossil fuels, or at least to control the energy transition as much as they can, making sure they can keep profiting from it.”

However, the update of the EC’s legal framework for plastic recycling in 2018 does reflect the EU’s increased ambitions and it could help boost plastics recycling capacity. The scale of the challenge facing Member States should not be underestimated. EU auditors strongly call on concerted action to get the EU on a good track within the coming five-to-ten years.

Von der Leyen delivers first State of the European Union

Today, the Commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen addressed her first “State of the European Union” (SOTEU) speech before the European Parliament. The annual discourse, which started early in the morning, focused inevitably on the COVID-19 crisis and its impact in Europe. On top of a rather unpredictable health crisis and an imminent Brexit, Europe is now dealing with violence on its neighbourhood and recurring migrant crisis insists on showing Europe’s fragilities.

“Next week, we will put forward the New Pact on Migration. We'll take a human and humane approach. Saving lives at sea is not optional and those countries who fulfill their legal and moral duties or are more exposed than others, must be able to rely on the solidarity of our whole EU,” said von der Leyen.

Before the impossibility of ignoring the pandemic that has affected worldwide economies, societies and ways of living, von der Leyen’s introductory notes focused on the challenges that COVID-19 have brought to Europe and how to get out of this health crisis with greater resilience. “We need to built a stronger European health Union,” delivered the president during the speech on Wednesday. Von der Leyen announced the upcoming empowerment of the European Medicines Agency and the ECDC, as well as a discussion regarding health competences. A Global Health summit was announced for the next year, in Italy.

Overall, a more resilient Europe means stronger economies and welfare systems ready to respond to people’s needs. Von der Leyen tried to reassure roughly 440 million citizens that instruments such as the Multiannual Financial Framework will boost the continent’s shape and help member states to get back on the recovery track.

Despite the significance of each of the Commission’s endeavours, the European Green Deal has attracted particular attention as it is poised to revamp the entire economy and finance in Europe. In fact, the EU is striving to be the first climate-neutral continent in the world and it hopes to inspire other nations to follow the lead.

The digital upgrade in Europe is another top priority. In late July, the EU’s Innovation and Research Commissioner Mariya Gabriel informed that developing digital competencies throughout the EU as well as encouraging gender equality in the bloc’s digital economy are two key areas that the Commission will seek to promote as part of the upcoming revamped Digital Education Action Plan.

Essentially, overall recovery will need strong policy direction, as well as investment. This prediction was outlined in greater detail in the Communication on Europe’s Recovery Plan. It was further reflected with new proposals mentioned in the Commission’s Letter of Intent to the European Parliament and Council on the occasion of the SOTEU. Finally, these will feature as part of a well-developed Commission Work Programme for 2021, to be adopted in October 2020. 

The SOTEU was first introduced ten years ago, after the Lisbon Treaty entered into force. Since then, it became a famous yearly ceremony, connecting the work developed by the EU and its citizens. 

European Parliament and Commission clash over endocrine disruptors

Article published in Katoikos

Illustration: World Health Organization

What are endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and what do we know about their dangers?

In its policy communication on endocrine disruption, the European Commission defines an endocrine disruptor as “an exogenous substance or mixture that alters function(s) of the endocrine system and consequently causes adverse health effects in an intact organism, or its progeny, or (sub)populations”.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), EDCs “encompass a variety of chemical classes, including natural and synthetic hormones, plant constituents, pesticides, compounds used in the plastics industry and in consumer products, and other industrial by-products and pollutants. They are often pervasive and widely dispersed in the environment. Some are persistent, can be transported long distances across national boundaries, and have been found in virtually all regions of the world. Others are rapidly degraded in the environment or human body or may be present for only short periods of time but at critical periods of development.”

The Commission acknowledges that “EDCs have been suggested as being responsible for apparent changes seen in human health patterns over recent decades.” The Commission also lists some of the dangers associated with EDCs: declining sperm counts in some geographical regions, increased numbers of male children born with genital malformations and increases in the rates of certain types of cancer.

Nevertheless, since the effects of EDCs are not yet fully understood, the public debate around these toxins has become quite controversial.

The journalist Stéphane Horel co-directed and co-authored a documentary “The Great Invasion”, in which she demonstrates how exposed we are to EDCs and interviews several academics, such as Philippe Grandjean from Harvard University School of Public Health and Andreas Kortenkamp from Brunel University London, who warn of the potential perils of EDCs to human health and the environment.

Several studies supported by the US National Institutes of Health (1, 2, 3, 4) have come to the conclusion that EDCs may affect vital organs in humans, such as the hypothalamus, thyroid, pancreas and pituitary glands, which are responsible for development, metabolism, reproduction and even the mood.

Nevertheless, these studies as well as other healthcare professionals urge for more research on the subject. “We urgently need to obtain a fuller picture of the health and environment impacts of EDCs,” said Maria Neira, the WHO’s director for public health and environment.

The Commission’s recent statement that the “potential mode of action of any such effect is unknown” seems to reveal, however, at least a worrying lack of necessary precaution, if not a disturbing inclination to embrace that “unknown” and do nothing, despite of the growing amount of biomedical literature on the subject.

The Commission’s proposal and the reactions of the Parliament

Under the EU’s biocides regulation (1107/2009), the Commission was obliged to define scientific criteria for defining potential EDCs by December 2013. In other words, the Commission was tasked with establishing a set of standards that would categorise EDCs and therefore expose their potential hazards.

However, the EU executive delayed the delivery of the criteria after deciding to make an impact assessment. In July 2014, Sweden, which swiftly took regulatory action on the matter at national level, sued the Commission and won the case.

In December 2015, the General Court of the EU decided that the Commission had breached EU law by failing to set criteria for EDCs. Finally, in June 2016, the Commission proposed that a substance should be considered an EDC only if it fulfills all of the following criteria: it is known to cause an adverse effect on human health; it has an endocrine mode of action; the adverse effect relevant for human health is a consequence of the endocrine mode of action (that is, if there is a causal link between adverse effect and mode of action).

On 4 July, a majority of EU member states accepted a draft law from the Commission in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals and Feed (an official meeting where member states cast their votes on important issues mainly related with health and food safety).

Vytenis Andriukaitis, the EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, subsequently hailed the member states’ approval “a great success” and urged the European Parliament and the Council, involved in the decision-making process, to ensure the law’s smooth adoption.

The European Parliament and NGOs, however, were less welcoming toward this draft law, since its narrow scope – it only covered pesticides and biocides – would have left citizens vulnerable to many EDCs. On 28 September, the Parliament’s Environment and Public Health Committee objected to the Commission’s proposed criteria in a plenary session.

“The [Commission’s] proposal is not all bad but it’s not good enough and above all, it is not legally sound,” said Jytte Guteland, the Swedish MEP (S&D Group), who filed the objection. “The Parliament’s legal service found that the Commission had exceeded its mandate with the introduction of a derogation for so-called non-target organisms,” Guteland added, explaining her objection to the draft criteria.

The introduction of the derogation could create a loophole in the legislation allowing for some substances to be approved “for a limited period necessary to control serious danger to plant health”.

As a consequence, the MEPs Guteland and Bas Eickhout (The Greens) penned a Motion for a Resolution on the basis that the Commission’s draft regulation “could not be considered to be based on objective scientific data related to the endocrine system, as required by the [European] Court”, while also accusing the EU Executive of “exceeding its implementing powers” by “modifying an essential regulatory element of Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009”.

“It is unacceptable that the Commission tries to lift a ban of certain EDCs via the backdoor of comitology to further the interests of the pesticides industry. The Commission has a mandate to come up with scientific criteria for EDCs, but not to undo a ban decided by the legislator,” Eickhout stated on 3 October, a day before the final vote in the European Parliament, in Strasbourg.

The Motion objecting to the draft criteria, co-signed by the Socialists and the Greens, was adopted by 36 votes to 26. The Parliament has also blocked access to lobbyists from Monsanto, a US multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation, after it refused to participate in a public hearing.

Finally on the “D-Day” of 4 October, an absolute majority of 389 MEPs blocked the European Commission’s proposed criteria to identify EDCs.

MEPs and the Council “have already clearly decided to ban all EDCs. The Commission was only mandated to set scientific criteria to identify the endocrine-disrupting substances, nothing more. Instead, it decided to include a derogation for certain substances, thereby creating a huge loophole in the legislation,” Gutteland said to EUobserver.

“Democracy and the precautionary principle – 1, lobbyists of the agrochemical industry – 0,” tweeted French MEP Eric Andrieu (S&D group) after the vote.

“This is a very important message that the European Parliament is sending to the Commission. The European Parliament does not accept any kind of circumvention. It is utterly necessary to have scientific criteria for the determination of EDCs,” said MEP Notis Marias (ECR group) regarding the executive’s attempt to change Regulation 1107/2009. “We saw that many of the different criteria emerged from political agreements and had nothing to do with scientific documentation,” added Marias.

The conservative MEP said it is “quite clear” that EDCs are dangerous chemicals for public health and the environment and finished his statement by greeting the final vote and the “decisiveness of the Parliament concerning the message that lobbyists can’t do whatever they want”.

NGOs congratulate the Parliament

The not-for-profit organisation Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) applauded “the courageous decision to veto a proposal that lacks ambition and would fail to protect human health and the environment” in a statement, in which it also claimed that “EDCs are hidden everywhere in our daily environment and evidence of their adverse effects – sometimes decades later and especially for children – is growing by the day”.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) shared the sentiment stating that the Parliament had rightly said “no” to the Commission’s lack of ambition: “BEUC applauds the Parliament’s decision to reject this unfit definition because too many chemicals would escape the regulatory net.”

What comes next?

With the veto in Parliament, the Commission, now back at square one, must change the proposal together with the representatives of the member states in the Standing Committee and present it again to the Parliament and the Council.

The Parliament called on the EU executive to ensure that the guidance for the implementation of the hazard-based criteria to identify EDCs is in line with the scientific criteria to determine endocrine-disrupting properties.

Moreover, MEPs called on the Commission to ensure that the same guidance clarifies that there is no hierarchy that gives preference to scientific data generated in accordance with internationally agreed study protocols over other scientific data.

Once the criteria are formally adopted, the EU will boast the world’s first regulatory system to enshrine a definition of EDCs in law.