BRUSSELS — The European Parliament backed a conservative push Thursday to pause parts of the EU’s wastewater cleanup law, over fears that making drugmakers pay to remove micropollutants could fuel medicine shortages.
Lawmakers in Strasbourg voted in favor of a proposal to suspend industry’s obligation to pay to remove pollutants such as antibiotics and microplastics from wastewater, in a move that risks putting Europe’s polluter-pays principle in the law on hold.
Members of the European Parliament agreed that this should happen immediately, while the European Commission undertakes a new independent study into the costs of removing these pollutants, as well as determining which sectors are most to blame for them.
“Given the growing doubts surrounding the underlying cost assumptions and the potential impact on the availability of medicines, an independent reassessment and a temporary suspension of the relevant obligations are the right course of action,” European People’s Party Member of Parliament Oliver Schenk told POLITICO after the vote.
