Proposal would allow member states to choose how to cut back on plastic bags, including taxes and bans.
The European Commission has published a proposal that would give European Union member states the freedom to ban plastic carrier bags for environmental reasons while remaining in compliance with the rules of the Union’s single market.
But environmental campaigners criticised the Commission for not insisting on tough EU-wide restrictions.
The Commission had previously suggested outright bans might be illegal. It has now proposed that member states should be required to take action to reduce the use of lightweight, plastic carrier bags that are less frequently recycled (with a thickness below 50 microns). But member states will be able to choose how to achieve this goal and the options include economic measures such as taxes and levies, and marketing restrictions such as bans.
“Such reduction measures should take account of current consumption levels of plastic carrier bags in individual member states, with higher levels requiring more ambitious efforts,” the Commission says.
Some member states have been waiting for the Commission to clarify whether national bans on plastic bags violate single-market rules. In 2011, Austria challenged a ban imposed by Italy on plastic bags, because the bags are classified as packaging under the packaging waste directive, and packaging that complies with the directive’s requirements cannot be banned.
Austria wanted to know whether plastic bag bans are legal before pressing forward with its own proposals. In 2010, France abandoned a similar plan for a ban after a Commission analysis suggested it would be illegal.
The proposal would explicitly make such bans possible as a derogation from article 18 of the packaging directive. But any ban has to be proportionate and non-discriminatory – it cannot favour domestic products over those from other member states.
National policies on plastic bags vary widely. Denmark, Ireland and Bulgaria charge a tax on plastic bags, while in Belgium a fee is charged that goes to the plastic collection and recycling firm Fost Plus. In September, the UK announced it would introduce a plastic bag tax of £0.05 (€0.06) in England from autumn 2015, but retailers with fewer than 250 employees will be exempt. Retailers in France, Germany, Portugal, Hungary and the Netherlands have begun charging for plastic bags.
The Commission’s analysis is that the use of such bags varies widely, from an average of four per capita per year in Finland and Denmark to 466 in Poland, Portugal and Slovakia.
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The Commission argues that further steps are necessary because lightweight plastic bags contribute to litter and are environmentally damaging, particularly to the marine environment.
The European Environmental Bureau, a green pressure group, condemned the Commission’s proposal as “a weak voluntary scheme”, saying that it passed the buck to the member states.
If approved by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, member states would have a year to put the proposal into national law and a further two years to comply.