Germany defends packaging law

Date: 25/04/1996

By Thomas Klau

BONN is set to reject a European Commission challenge to the legality of its packaging law, denying that the 1991 German Packaging Ordinance constitutes an illegal barrier to trade within the single market.

Ministries in Bonn are currently finalising the official German response to Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti's December letter, in which he expressed concern over the ordinance's preference for reusable packaging materials over throw-away packaging.

The German government has based its answer, due to be presented to the Commission by 30 April, on so-called 'life cycle assessments' (LCAs) on various types of packaging used for mineral water, soft drinks, beer and milk.

Defending the German position, Bonn environment ministry official Thomas Rummler recently claimed at a conference in Brussels that the amount of waste in Germany would increase massively if refillable containers were abandoned in favour of so-called 'one-way' packaging.

In an indication of a partial softening of the German position, Rummler said that Bonn might modify the rules on refillable packaging for milk. However, he made it clear that Bonn intends to reject changes to its refill quotas for beer and other beverages.

On milk, he said, a government-commissioned LCA published last year showed that one-way plastic pouches were less environmentally damaging than refillable glass bottles. The German government was therefore considering setting up a minimum quota for one-way

polyethylene packaging, in addition to the existing 17&percent; quota for reusable packaging.

According to Bonn officials, replacing all reusable packaging on the German market by throw-away packaging would increase the amount of packaging waste, which totalled 11.7 million tonnes in 1993, by another 4.3 million tonnes a year.

Acknowledging Monti's claim that the German packaging law might hinder trade, Rummler stressed that such a measure was nevertheless legally defensible for environmental reasons. “The Commission's position is environmentally and legally unsound,” said a German official involved in the dispute. “We are confident our arguments will prevail.”

He insisted that initial Commission claims that Germany did not have sufficient recycling capacity to deal with its own packaging waste and thus exported its waste problem to other countries, no longer reflected reality.

The Commission has said it will decide on its next step after careful examination of the data provided by Germany.

However, despite complaints from one-way packaging manufacturers that the German law is actually designed to favour local products over imports, many observers doubt that the Commission will drag Germany before the European Court of Justice. They believe an informal agreement on a modification of recycling quotas for each category of product is more likely.

For the industry, such an agreement might be the last chance to press for changes in Germany under single market legislation.

Once the EU packaging directive comes into force on 1 July, the dossier will move from DGXV, the Directorate-General for the internal market, to DGXI (responsible for the environment) where officials are thought to be more supportive of the German packaging laws.