An Internal Market Legal Basis to drive waste management step-change in the New Circular Economy Act

The undersigned industry associations express their strong support for the European Union’s ambitions for circularity. To achieve a true circular economy and a functioning European market for secondary raw materials, the upcoming New Circular Economy Act (CEA) must be grounded in an internal market legal basis (Article 114 TFEU).

Ambitious circular economy goals can only be met through harmonised rules driving a step-change in waste management across all of the EU. Today’s waste management landscape across the EU remains extremely fragmented, marked by uneven performance and divergent national regulatory frameworks. Nearly half of all EU countries still landfill more than 30% of their municipal waste, with four touching peaks between 60% and 80%1 . When it comes to recycling, only nine Member States are expected to meet the 2025 recycling targe .

The recent targeted revision of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) ultimately fell short in resolving the deep-rooted structural shortcomings that continue to hinder the efficiency of European waste management systems. The New CEA represents a unique opportunity to address these structural deficiencies by putting forward common rules to ensure that all Member States, rather than only a few front-runners, deliver against their respective circular economy goals. The lack of harmonised rules on waste management is not only undermining Europe’s ability to meet these goals collectively, but it is equally preventing it to create a Single Market for secondary raw materials. As acknowledged by the European Commission in the Single Market Horizontal Strategy3 , divergent waste rules are among the most reported Single Market barriers, so-called ‘Terrible Ten’.

The implications of these barriers are thus environmental, economic and also geopolitical, because the result is increased external dependencies. We strongly believe that the Commission must stand firm in the drafting of CEA and push-back on any attempts to weaken its ambition disguised as flexibility, under the pretext of defending national specificities. The end goal should be to ensure that the laggards catch-up with the front-runners and that, ultimately, all Member States do their parts in achieving the circular economy goals.

Any calls for the introduction of Article 192 TFEU (environmental protection) as a legal basis should be rejected as this will further exacerbate the current situation, create legal uncertainty about the residual responsibilities of Member States and adversely impact efforts to support the EU’s transition to a circular and climate-neutral economy. With broad stakeholder support across Europe, we urge the EU Commission and co-legislators to uphold in its entirety the internal market legal basis, which is best suited to serve the objectives of the future CEA.