The event was a platform to discuss the upcoming Circular Economy Act and the broader EU competitiveness agenda, with a strong focus on fostering a European Circular Single Market and strengthening the waste sector’s contribution to the circular economy.
The success of the conference, reflected in the active discussions and strong participation, highlights how critical these topics are. It also emphasises the sector’s eagerness to collaborate and achieve Europe’s circular economy goals. The conference opened with a presentation of FEAD’s priorities by Claudia Mensi, FEAD President, where she revealed and presented the legislative priorities that the private waste management sector has defined and intends to demand from the European institutions for this new mandate. A Keynote Speech and overview on the upcoming ‘Circular Economy Act’ delivered by Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, Director of Circular Economy at DG ENV, European Commission followed, highlighting the main measures it may contain and the importance of ‘circularity that creates opportunity’.
The two panels that succeeded explored the following topics in-depth:
Panel 1: The Necessary actions for a European Circular Single Market
The panel discussion highlighted the need for practical implementation over adopting overregulation for its own sake. The questions and answers portion of the panel echoed an alarming message from industry leaders who expressed the recycling sector’s crisis, exclaiming that ’we must strengthen European circularity and safeguard our recycling industry’. This crisis paradoxically coincides with the adoption of ambitious legislation to support the circular economy, including recycling content targets. Yet, European recyclers are looking for storage capacities and stocking up instead of seeing their materials reincorporated into new products.
Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, Director of Circular Economy, DG ENV, European Commission, stated: ‘There is a growing awareness of the circular economy’s role in decarbonisation and resource security’. Florian Flachenecker, Policy Officer, DG-ENV, European Commission, stressed the 27 billion euro investment gap for the circular economy, for which both private and public investments are needed.
Alejandro Dorado Najera, Circular Economy Commissioner, Ministry for Ecological Transition, Spain, highlighted that consumer behaviour is also an issue by saying that ‘we need a make effort in campaigns to let people know the effect of their behaviours’.
Sofie Bouteligier, International Policy Officer, OVAM, Belgium, reminded us that the main question to ask is: ‘How can we meet society’s needs with less materials and how can secondary raw materials help with that?’
Monica Harting Pfeifer, Public Affairs & Plastics Project Manager, REMONDIS, Germany, stressed the urgency of action, stating: ’We need circularity in Europe, based on European waste recycled in Europe, and not a market that pulls from elsewhere. Right now, many recycling companies are closing, putting at risk what we’ve worked so hard to develop. If nothing happens in the next half year, the recycling capacities built over the last 15 years will fall and it will take another decade to rebuild them’.
Panel 2: Boosting the competitiveness of the EU waste management sector
The second panel stressed the need for a fair market and collaboration between the public and private sector in order for the European Union to achieve its climate and competitive goals.
Michael Karl Pieber, Case Manager, DG Competition, European Commission and Frederik de Ridder, Legal Officer, EFTA Surveillance Authority, enlightened the audience about the respective authorities’ roles and experiences in enforcing competition rules for the waste management sector.:
Elisabetta Perrotta, Director of Assoambiente, Italy, and FEAD Member, emphasised: ‘Private companies have in their DNA the possibility and dynamism to reach a stronger recycling market. That is why we shouldn’t suffocate them’.
Gunnar Grini, Director of Recycling, Federation of Norwegian Industries, and FEAD Member, noted that in Norway, ‘’there are strong interactions between the public and private sector, but when operating in commercial markets, competition rules must be observed’.
The conference also featured an insightful presentation which questioned the need for changing market and competition rules in European Union Law by Jakub Pawelec, Chair of FEAD’s Legal and Market Issues Committee, who explained that ‘the circular economy needs private companies to succeed, and private companies need fair competition to survive’.
