Commission’s Vice-President Jyrki Katainen talks to MEPs about a new Circular Economy Package proposal

Mr Jyrki Katainen, the European Commission’s Vice-President for “Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness” had an exchange of views on the 31st of March at the Environment Committee of the European Parliament.

Due to the new structure of the Commission, VP Katainen is responsible for the main services that will be working on a new proposal for a Circular Economy Package (the previous one was deleted in late 2014). During the exchange with MEPs of the Environment Committee, he outlined key points of the future Circular Economy Package (CEP) proposal to be proposed by the Commission:

  • Waste was the most discussed aspect of the recently deleted CEP and it will remain a central topic in the new proposal, although the topics of product design and reusing elements will also be given more attention than in the past.
  • Although the EC will keep its initial ambition on the waste targets, it will give more flexibility to struggling member states with landfilling targets and their implementation period. He developed by saying that waste management was very different across member states and a more gradual approach on landfilling was likely to avert future investments on incineration infrastructure in some countries lagging behind, which could instead put money on recycling infrastructure if they were given enough time.
  • He assured that the EC aims to avoid incineration (in most cases) and favours recycling
  • The EC is confident that the new CEP will be proposed by autumn of 2015.