EU Updates - March
EU Commission to Launch Sustainable Products Initiative by the End of March
The European Commission is about to launch a Sustainable Products Initiative (SPI), that will introduce new obligations for products circulating on the EU market, to make them more sustainable. The initiative aims to revise the Ecodesign Directive and will force companies to focus on improving the durability, recyclability and energy efficiency of their products.
The SPI is expected to accelerate the work done by the Commission and make it more effective, by targeting specific group categories. The presence of harmful chemicals in products such as electronics and ICT equipment, textiles, furniture, steel, cement, and chemicals will be addressed.
The creation of a database with information on the products on the EU market – and their sustainability levels – is also envisaged.
After a public consultation ended in June 2021, the proposal by the European Commission is expected to be released on 30th March 2022.
The legislative initiative is part of the broader new Circular Economy Action Plan presented in March 2020, through which the Commission aims to focus on circular economy, as well as climate neutral, non-toxic and resource-efficient solutions.
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Updates on the EU Deforestation Law
The European Commission published the EU Deforestation Law last November, advancing the proposal for a Regulation able to fill the existing gaps in the legislation addressing deforestation and the protection of forests and land.
Indeed, the existing EU legislation on the topic only covers illegal logging and associated trade through the EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan and the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), which focuses on the presence of illegally harvested timber products on the EU market.
The new EU Forest Strategy wants to address the consequence of the European Union’s request for agricultural products which need a great expansion of lands, such as soy, beef, cocoa and coffee, and encourage the consumption of “deforestation-free products” able not to harm biodiversity and nature.
The Deforestation Law aims at setting mandatory due diligence requirements for the placing of deforestation and land degradation products in the EU market, increasing their traceability and reducing at least 31.9 million metric tons of carbon emissions to the atmosphere every year due to EU consumption and production.
Up to this moment, six categories of commodities and some of their derived products are included in the scope, and operators are asked to guarantee access to product information in order to allow companies to evaluate the risks linked to the supply chain and the need for mitigation measures. The six categories are:
Beef
Wood
Palm oil
Soya
Coffee
Cocoa
To implement the Proposal, Member States will be provided with a new digital service, the Register, containing the data of the products placed on the EU market, such as the country of origin.
This new set of measures will have a big impact on the EU market, and a group of industry associations recently explained its doubts about the big implications of the Proposal on the sector through a letter to France’s Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili. The letter was signed by COCERAL (the European Association of trade in agro-supply), FEDIOL (the European Association for vegetable oil and protein meal) and the European Cocoa Association, and states the group’s concern about the requested traceability of products and the needed cooperation to ensure the Proposal’s implementation, as well as the need for better integration of the differences existing among commodities given the Proposal’s “one-size-fits-all” approach. Furthermore, the document aims at pushing the EU Council Presidency to listen to the sector organisations’ needs to include sector-specific requirements and assure that smallholders are not harmed in the process since their participation in the deforestation-free market is likely to be challenged by the new legislation.
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EU Commission Plans Full Nature Restoration by 2050
The European Commission is pushing for the restoration of all degraded habitats across the bloc by mid-century and for a stop to nature deterioration, according to a draft of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation seen by POLITICO. That means countries will have to take restoration measures not only in Natura 2000 protected sites, but in other areas as well. The legislation, expected to be presented on March 23, is aimed at helping the bloc achieve its nature conservation goals under the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy.
The legislation will compel countries to come up with national plans to restore at least 30% of degraded habitats by 2030, 60% by 2040 and 90% by 2050, according to the draft. That applies to both marine and land ecosystems.
The benefits of taking action largely outweigh the costs, according to the Commission. It estimates that restoring ecosystems such as peatlands, marshlands, forests and coastal wetlands will bring benefits of up to €1.86 trillion for the bloc, while doing so will only cost an estimated €154 billion.
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EU Commission Launches Chips Act Industrial Plan
The European Commission has recently launched a multiyear, large-scale investment plan for its microchips sector and presented new powers to secure chips in times of crisis, in an effort to "make Europe a leader in this market," its President Ursula von der Leyen said.
"Chips are crucial in almost every device. But the pandemic has also painfully exposed the vulnerability of chips supply chains," von der Leyen said, referring to shortages that have cropped up in the past year and a half and have ground manufacturing to a halt — including in Europe's powerful automotive sector.
As part of the strategy, which includes a regulatory European Chips Act proposal, the Commission wants to launch a large-scale “Chips for Europe” investment plan, combining "almost €5 billion" in EU investment with private investments and member countries' contributions for the purposes of research and innovation funding.
The Commission also recommended that its member countries set up a “toolbox” to secure chips supplies in case of an emergency. Such measures include organizing joint purchases using Europe's market power, and compelling industry players to provide the EU with information on stock piles and pipelines.
The EU previously set itself the target of gaining 20 percent of the global market share in the semiconductor industry by 2030.
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