EU says ‘no deal preferable to bad deal' in plastics treaty

Magnus Brunner, a senior European Commission official, briefs the European Parliament Jan. 22 on the bloc's negotiating strategy for the plastics treaty.

The European Union supports majority voting for a global plastics treaty while suggesting it would rather walk away from a bad deal than agree to a treaty it sees as too weak.

At a Jan. 22 briefing before the European Parliament to outline the bloc's strategy after talks nearly fell apart in December 2024 in South Korea, a senior official said that "the European Union should continue to defend the line that no deal is preferable to a bad deal."

Magnus Brunner, a member of the European Commission's cabinet, told parliament that the EU was "deeply disappointed" that the talks in the South Korean city of Busan, the last of what had been five planned rounds, didn't produce a final deal.

But he said the EU would push ahead with plans for what is expected to be an extra negotiating round planned for this year.

At a minimum, Brunner said any treaty should include measures for extended producer responsibility and product design, and address microplastics.

But he also said the EU backs a potentially controversial element in the talks: majority voting in the treaty's governing body. He suggested it's key to building a strong treaty and preventing smaller groups from exercising vetoes.

"Decisions must be taken by majority vote, if consensus fails," Brunner said. "It is the only way I think we can strengthen the treaty over time without being subject to veto by one country."

How to make decisions has been very contentious in the previous five rounds, with the current rules calling for countries to make decisions based on consensus of all 170-plus nations in the talks.

While the talks showed signs of agreement on some areas, like waste management, the Busan round also showed deep divisions between countries over issues like limiting plastic production levels, regulating chemicals in plastic products and addressing "problematic" single-use plastics applications.

Major oil-producing nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia have strenuously argued that some of those provisions are beyond the treaty's scope.

But Brunner said the EU was encouraged that more than 100 countries in the Busan round supported an ambitious treaty.

"We see significant scope for making the text more ambitious," he said. "A bad deal would fail to put us on a path towards the sustainable production and consumption of plastics. It would lack concrete measures. And it would fail to act against the most polluting plastic products, single-use plastic and chemicals of concerns, used in plastics."

Another remaining challenge deals with how to pay for the treaty and bridge gaps between developing and developed nations, he said.

"One of the main challenges will be finding a way to respond to requests for a dedicated financial mechanism while preserving a role for the existing ones," Brunner said. "It will be difficult to reach an agreement without some form of a hybrid solution, I would say, that satisfies developed and developing countries."

He said that no matter what happens with the treaty, the EU should continue to work on internal legislation to address plastic in the environment, like measures across the EI on pellet loss that is expected to be finished this year.

And he said European nations should be flexible in trying to find agreement with other countries in the global treaty.

"We know what the main issues of divergence are. We must use the period ahead to explore how to bridge these gaps with key countries," Brunner said. "Finding a balance between measures that address the whole life cycle of plastics and many of the concerns related to finance, of course, is very crucial."

* Source : https://www.plasticsnews.com/news/eu-backs-majority-voting-plastics-treaty-says-no-deal-preferable-bad-deal