Proposal for a Council Regulation establishing criteria determining when copper scrap ceases to be waste under Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council

Pursuant to Article 6(1) of Directive 2008/98/EC on waste certain specified waste shall cease to be waste when it has undergone a recovery operation and complies with specific criteria to be developed in line with the legal conditions laid down in this provision. In accordance with Article 6(2) of this directive such criteria should be set for specific materials by the Commission and be adopted in the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 39(2) of the directive.

Accordingly, the Commission submitted a draft Regulation for vote in the Committee established under Article 39 of the directive. The Committee did not give a favourable opinion on the draft Regulation in its meeting on 9 July 2012 mainly due to a high number of abstentions (109). The chief concern raised by some Member States was that the quality criterion of less than 2% of total amount of foreign materials in copper scrap resulting from the recovery operation was too stringent.

The Commission took note of this; however it maintains and refers the same legal proposal to the Council on the basis of the Joint Research Centre's (JRC) technical report which, in consultation with stakeholders, concluded that 2% represents a safe environmental limit value on foreign materials for copper scrap to cease to be waste in line with condition (d) in Article 6(1) of Directive 2008/98/EC.

Thus, in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 5(a) of Decision 1999/468/EC a Proposal for a Council Regulation is submitted to Council and forwarded to the European Parliament.

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)787: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:787:FIN

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