The decision by Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella to discard environmental legislation on waste came under fire as European environment ministers, including Leo Brincat, opposed the move.
The “circular economy” package was intended to increase recycling levels and tighten rules on incineration and landfill.
Yet the European Commission announced last month that these laws would be binned despite objections from the European Parliament and national environment ministers that unanimously opposed the move.
The package contained a list of legally-binding targets, including a 70 per cent recycling target for municipal waste and an 80 per cent recycling target for packaging waste by 2030. It also aimed to achieve a ban on landfilling of recyclable and biodegradable waste by 2025.
Why isn’t the Commissioner here? He is paid well enough
The package will be re-tabled later this year in “a more ambitious proposal”, the Commissioner’s office told Times of Malta.
But national environment ministers insisted the package should not have been dumped.
Mr Brincat said although Malta had expressed its reservations on the over-ambitious targets, the country had supported the package because it outlined a long term and sustainable vision for waste management.
“While some of the targets were onerous, designed as one-size-fits-all, we believe a review rather than a withdrawal of the package would have worked better,” Environment Minister Leo Brincat told Times of Malta.
He said it was difficult to understand how a package already seen as over-ambitious by some countries would now be even more ambitious, as the Commission has promised.
He said his position was consistent with the stand he took in discussions held with the previous Commission.
For years, executives and environmentalists have been talking about the circular economy.
The idea is that businesses that engage in circular economy thinking design their products to either be reused or returned safely back to the earth.
Former Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik, who oversaw its development, was awarded a leadership prize at the World Economic Forum in Davos for his work on the circular economy. This was in the same week the new Environment Commissioner’s office confirmed the waste package would be withdrawn.
The European Parliament environment committee slammed Commissioner Vella for the decision and for not turning up to face their objections.
“I can’t remember any file being so controversial. Why isn’t the Commissioner here? He is paid well enough,” said German MEP Karl Heinz Florenz from the EPP group, which is the largest in the Parliament.
MEPs warned the decision would cost jobs and growth. It was envisaged the package would create €600 billion net savings, two million jobs and add one per cent to GDP growth.
When asked by Times of Malta why the Commissioner did not attend such a controversial meeting, his office replied he was in discussions with the fisheries committee. He was also not “personally invited” to attend the debate on the circular economy package, a spokeswoman said.
She added that it was the Commission’s “prerogative” to review pending proposals at the start of the new mandate to assess whether they were in line with this Commission’s priorities.
“The decision to withdraw the package followed a “transparent and thorough” exercise, she said.