EU failed to implement plastic waste tax correctly, says CFI

This article was originally published in English

He European Court of Auditors states in a report published on September 16 that Governments were not prepared for the new tax of the EU on plastic packaging.

According to the measures introduced in 2021, Member States They will have to pay 0.80 euros for each kilogram of non-recycled plastic packaging waste they produce.But the European Commission must ensure that calculations and controls are uniform across the bloc, auditors say.

This source of income contributes to financing the EU budgetwhich amounts to around 150 billion euros annually, together with customs duties on goods entering the bloc, a portion of VAT and a separate payment reflecting each country’s GDP.

But there are serious doubts about the reliability of the statistics supporting the taxaccording to the Luxembourg-based Court of Auditors. Lefteris Christoforou, the ECA member responsible for the audit, said there was “too many shortcomings” in the way data was collected and sent to Brussels.

“Therefore, we call upon the European Commission to solve this immediately and to draw on lessons learned when preparing potential future sources of revenue for the EU,” he said.

Only five member states had correctly transcribed the 2018 update of EU packaging legislation to national legislation, meaning that The other 22 were facing legal action from the EU executive.

But problems remain, even on issues as basic as The definition of “plastic” and “packaging” according to auditors. A new review to centralise the legislation, agreed in March but not yet in force, will not solve all the problems detectedsaid José Parente, who led the audit.

The transition to directly applicable regulations”will not address the number of checks being carried out on effectiveness of the operations of recycling“Parente told Euronews. “Although some Member States complied with the regulations, they continued to without applying it in a harmonized mannerand that is not necessarily solved by applying the regulation.”

Deficiencies in the calculation of waste volumes and recycling rates may have caused a budget revenue shortfallbut Parente said he had found no evidence that member states were knowingly underreporting plastic waste.

Although it took two years to finalize the data, the 5.9 billion euros obtained in 2021 turned out to be lower than estimates by about 1.1 billionmeaning that future contributions will have to be adjusted upwards. According to the report, last year Revenue from the tax on plastics amounted to 7.2 billion eurosthat is, 4% of the EU budget for that year.

Crime wave

The auditors had already warned that EU recycling targets could inciting criminal gangs to intensify illegal dumpingand Europol, the EU’s police agency, has reportedly confirmed an uptick.

“There are several cases of plastics declared as recycled that have been found in landfills or incinerated“Parente said, adding that he could not estimate the global magnitude of the problem.

“The Commission must assess the risk and take the necessary measures to mitigate it“Parente said, calling on the EU executive to improve its surveillance before 2027. The Commission also has to set standards for using production data instead of waste stream metricsas this can lead to large discrepancies in the data, the auditors said.

In its response to the report, the Commission stated that it was “fully aware of the need to improve the comparability and reliability of data” and that A new methodology would have been implemented in 2026although it argued that some shortcomings were due to the rapid adoption and retroactive application of the new rate by governments.

But the EU executive said that the rules established by the governments themselves limit their inspection powers, preventing it from checking whether waste is actually recycled. “Only Member States can carry out audits or controls that mitigate these risks“the Commission said in a written response to the ECA.