EU countries approved new legislation Friday to slash the bloc’s packaging waste, overcoming eleventh-hour reservations from skeptical countries and a push from the European Commission to stall the process.
EU negotiators came to a provisional agreement on the new legislation last week, pending final approval from the European Parliament and EU countries.
But the outcome of today’s vote was thrown into uncertainty as Italy signaled it needed further concessions — and suggested that its approval of separate EU supply chain rules, also up for a vote in the Council of the European Union today, was conditional on obtaining its demands on the packaging law.
Satisfied with several minor tweaks — including weaker rules on how to calculate the “extended producer responsibility” costs to be paid by packaging producers — Italy ended up voting in favor of the deal.
