Battery Regulation: Council and Parliament continue work on it

Work on the new EU Battery Regulation is making progress – both in the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament.

In Parliament, the regulation is almost at its final stage. After the responsible rapporteur, Simona Bonafé, presented her draft report in September, all other members of the leading Environment Committee had the opportunity to submit their comments.

In total, there are almost 1,500 amendments to the Commission’s proposal. Parliamentarians see a need for improvement especially in Chapter VII on End-of-Life Management of Batteries, which regulates extended producer responsibility.

Parliamentarians also took up some proposals from Landbell Group company European Recycling Platform (ERP): for example, regarding the definition of portable batteries or the introduction of cross-border enforcement networks.

The same applies to ERP’s proposal to calculate the collection rate for waste portable batteries according to the ‘available for collection’ method. The vote on the amendments in the leading committee ENVI is scheduled for the end of January.

In Council, the discussions are likely to take a little longer. The reason for this might be that most Member States favour a dual legal base allowing certain flexibility in the implementation of Chapter VII on End-of-Life Requirements. Thus, the final negotiations will fall to the French presidency, which starts on 1 January.

Nevertheless, member states have already begun to come up with proposals for amendments. Again, the corresponding draft documents contain some proposals that were put forward by ERP: for example,  a distinction between national and EU-wide authorised representatives and extending the market surveillance provisions to those of Chapter VII.

ERP will continue to engage in the legislative process, proposing amendments, providing justifications resulting from its operational experience, and discussing these with the institutions.