Joint industry statement on harmonization of packaging labelling in the EU

As supporters and contributors to the EU Green Deal objectives, we strive to improve our products and packaging. In order to facilitate that, we need a well-functioning and harmonised internal market.

Therefore, we support the European Commission’s proposal in the Regulation on packaging and packaging waste (PPWR) that ensures that packaging that is compliant with it can be placed in any case on the EU market.

However, we believe that there are still provisions allowing Member States to introduce national labelling systems for extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes. This regulatory approach will make companies’ management processes more burdensome, and industry will be facing diverging national labelling requirements in different counties, which will lead to re-labelling, shipping back and forth to logistic centres, etc. National labelling requirements, such as those currently in place in France, Italy, or Spain, jeopardize the European Single Market, cause unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions, higher costs for consumers and, in the worst-case, additional waste.

Therefore, for the upcoming trilogues, we propose to the policymakers to:

• Further strengthen the approach to harmonised European labelling rather than national measures by limiting the ability of Member States to introduce national labels for extended producer responsibility schemes.
• Inform consumers about the correct disposal of packaging via standardised labelling.

Read the statement here.