Confindustria, Confagricoltura, Confcommercio, Confartigianato, Confcooperative, Federdistribuzione, Casartigiani and CLAAI, speaking at a hearing at the Environment (VIII) and Productive Activities (X) Committees of the Chamber of Deputies on the proposed European Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, expressed to the Parliament the absolute necessity to put pressure on the European institutions for more common sense and balance in the introduction of the new discipline.

The associations reiterated the alarm resulting from the application of the new regulations. There are many aspects of the measure assessed as critical that, if approved, risk damaging an entire system of excellence. More than 30% of the country's Gross Domestic Product is at risktens of thousands of companies and hundreds of thousands of jobs. We are talking about the many sectors that produce packaging, their suppliers of raw materials, the entire Italian recycling industry, the companies that use such packaging to market and export goods in Italy and abroad, from agriculture to all the food production and catering chains, from cosmetics to pharmaceuticals, from public establishments to tourism, from small, medium and large organised distribution to vending, logistics and machinery manufacturers. What is most worrying about the proposal is the total lack of technological neutrality.

The government has pledged to be the voice of business. But in the coming weeks the institutional negotiations will reach a decisive stage. In view of the European Parliament's plenary vote, scheduled for 22 November, and the Spanish Presidency's intention to further accelerate the negotiations and have a general guideline approved as early as the Environment Council of 18 December, it was deemed necessary draw the attention of Italian institutions once again to the strong fears of irreversible damage to the country's economy and strategic supply chains.

While agreeing with the imperative need to work together towards increasingly ambitious environmental goals, in this case there is no scientific evidence to confirm that reuse is better than recycling from an environmental point of viewIn fact, the opposite is true for food. There is scientific evidence that shows greater water and energy consumption and CO2 emissions are significantly worse. Italy is among the EU countries that, according to the Commission itself, does not run the risk of missing recycling targets for either packaging or municipal waste. It is therefore hard to understand the reason for penalising recycling in favour of reuse, both environmentally and economically.

The critical aspects of the measure are unfortunately not 'limited' only to the issue of reuse at the expense of recycling. In fact, there are also production bans on various types of single-use packaging.

Finally, a further important critical issue is the identification, for certain types of single-use packaging, of the deposit return system (i.e. the so-called Deposit Return System, DRS).

For all that, one can only renew the wish of a substantial and profound review of the entire measure, to orient it towards greater balance and flexibility.

It is essential to urgently concentrate all efforts on three fronts: the presentation and the support of amendments for the vote in the European Parliament; dialogue with the Spanish Presidency and the countries supporting the proposal to avoid arbitrary choices that are extremely impactful for our economy; the consolidation of alliances with the other Member States - there are many - who, like Italy, do not agree with the Regulation's measures, as they do not allow the necessary flexibility and do not recognise the principle of technology neutrality for achieving ambitious environmental goals through the circular economy.

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