The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted the report by Simona BONAFÈ (S&D, IT) on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directives 2000/53/EC on end-of-life vehicles, 2006/66/EC on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators, and 2012/19/EU on waste electrical and electronic equipment.
This proposal seeks to simplify the obligations of Member States as far as reporting obligations are concerned and align them with the reporting provisions in the Waste Framework Directive, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and the Landfill Directive. This proposal also aims at aligning the comitology provisions to the Lisbon Treaty.
The committee recommended that the European Parliament’s position adopted at first reading following the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the Commission proposal as follows:
Sound and reliable: Member States should focus their efforts on proper collection and transmission of data to the Commission. Amendments aim to strengthen the quality of data by means of introducing a quality check in the Batteries Directive 2006/66/EC on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators. In this regard, the data reported by the Member State shall be accompanied by a quality check report.
The Commission should also develop a common methodology for collection, organisation and processing of data in cooperation with national statistical offices in order to ensure comparability of quality data.
Evaluation reports: in the report examining the data collection, the Commission may include information about the implementation of this Directive as a whole and its impact on the environment and human health. If appropriate, a legislative proposal to amend this Directive shall accompany the reports.
Review of the Directives: by 31 December 2018, in the context of the circular economy action plan, the Commission shall review this Directive as a whole and in particular its scope and the targets, based on an impact assessment. The Commission shall also examine the possibility of setting resource specific targets, in particular for critical raw materials. That review shall be accompanied by a legislative proposal, if appropriate.
Instruments to promote a shift to a more circular economy: in order to contribute to the objectives laid down in the amended Directives, Member States shall make use of adequate economic instruments and shall take other measures to provide incentives for the application of the waste hierarchy.
Planned obsolescence: given that is an expanding issue, intrinsically contradictory with the goals of a circular economy, Members suggested that it addressed with the objective of rooting it out, through a concerted effort of all main stakeholders, industry, customers and regulatory authorities.
Delegated acts: amendments were also introduced to align the text to the new Interinstitutional Agreement of 16 April 2016. In order to lay down the methodology for data collection and processing and the format for reporting data for batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators, the power to adopt acts should be delegated to the Commission.