Parliament’s Environment Committee put to the test: will it prove its independence as a decision-making body?

Brussels, 21 June 2010 – Tomorrow, the MEPs in the environment committee will be faced with a dilemma: whether to back the Commission’s proposal for a real internal market for WEEEs or to give in to member state pressure and maintain the current system.

The current system, in our view, is deeply flawed. At present, the WEEE directive requires electrical appliances to be registered in the country where they are first placed on the market. Business reality clearly requires that companies operating in more than one member state regularly have to move goods from one country to another. But the effect of WEEE is that in transporting electrical goods to be sold in another country, the distributor is deemed to be placing them on the market again, thus new registration requirements apply.

 

To add to this burden, each member state has its own registration requirements. So companies active in several member states must adapt their IT-systems to 27 different sets of rules. In addition, the member state from which the appliance started off may be reluctant to refund the original registration fees, thus adding financial cost to administrative burden.

 

To rectify this problem, the Commission is proposing, in its recast of WEEE, to harmonise both registration systems and reporting requirements: this is clearly a change for the better.

 

The commerce sector is therefore dismayed at the opposition of a number of decision-makers, who are insisting on maintaining a national approach.

 

"In our view, national rules on placing goods on the market do nothing to encourage producers to manufacture more environmentally friendly products. On the contrary, such national rules shift responsibility from producer to distributor as the goods move from one country to another. Where, therefore, is the incentive for the producer?" commented Xavier Durieu, Secretary General of EuroCommerce.

 

This shift of responsibility also violates the basic principle of European law that each operator should be responsible in relation to its respective role in the supply chain.

 

Xavier Durieu concluded, "The proposed recast of the WEEE directive could be a great example of how environmental challenges can be met without undermining the internal market. It is shocking that some decision-makers refuse to see this and continue to put national interest first."

Christel Davidson
Senior Adviser on Environment
T:+32 2 737 05 90
davidson@eurocommerce.be