http://www.legislation.gov.uk/id/eudr/2018/849

Directive (EU) 2018/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council

of 30 May 2018

amending Directives 2000/53/EC on end-of-life vehicles, 2006/66/EC on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators, and 2012/19/EU on waste electrical and electronic equipment

(Text with EEA relevance)

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 192(1) thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,

After transmission of the draft legislative act to the national parliaments,

Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee1,

Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions2,

Acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure3,

Whereas:

(1)

Waste management in the Union should be improved, with a view to protecting, preserving and improving the quality of the environment, protecting human health, ensuring prudent, efficient and rational utilisation of natural resources and promoting the principles of the circular economy.

(2)

To reduce the regulatory burden on small establishments or undertakings, simplification of the permitting and registration requirements for small establishments or undertakings should be introduced.

(3)

Implementation reports prepared by Member States every three years have not proved to be an effective tool for verifying compliance or ensuring good implementation, and are generating unnecessary administrative burdens. It is therefore appropriate to repeal provisions obliging Member States to produce such reports. Instead, compliance monitoring should be exclusively based on the data which Member States report every year to the Commission.

(4)

Data reported by Member States are essential for the Commission to assess compliance with Union waste law by Member States. The quality, reliability and comparability of data should be improved by introducing a single entry point for all waste data, deleting obsolete reporting requirements, benchmarking national reporting methodologies and introducing a data quality check report.

(5)

Reliable reporting of data concerning waste management is paramount to efficient implementation and to ensuring comparability of data among Member States. Therefore, when reporting on attainment of the targets set out in Directives 2000/53/EC4, 2006/66/EC5 and 2012/19/EU6 of the European Parliament and of the Council, Member States should use the most recent rules developed by the Commission and methodologies developed by the respective national competent authorities responsible for implementing those Directives.

(6)

The waste hierarchy laid down in Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council7 applies as an order of priority in Union waste prevention and management legislation. When complying with the objectives of this Directive, Member States should take the necessary measures to take the order of priorities of the waste hierarchy into account and ensure the practical implementation of those priorities.

(7)

In the context of the Union’s commitment to making the transition towards a circular economy, Directives 2000/53/EC, 2006/66/EC and 2012/19/EU should be reviewed and, if necessary, amended, taking account of their implementation and giving consideration, inter alia, to the feasibility of setting targets for specific materials contained in the relevant waste streams. During the review of Directive 2000/53/EC, attention should also be paid to the problem of end-of-life vehicles that are not accounted for, including the shipment of used vehicles suspected to be end-of-life vehicles, and to the application of the Correspondents’ Guidelines No 9 on shipments of waste vehicles. During the review of Directive 2006/66/EC, the technical development of new types of batteries that do not use hazardous substances should also be taken into account.

(8)

In order to amend and supplement Directive 2000/53/EC and to amend Directive 2012/19/EU, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union should be delegated to the Commission in respect of point (b) of Article 4(2) and Articles 5(5), 6(6) and 8(2) of Directive 2000/53/EC, as amended by this Directive, and Article 19 of Directive 2012/19/EU, as amended by this Directive. It is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making8. In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States’ experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts.

(9)

In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of Directive 2000/53/EC in respect of Articles 7(2) and 9(1d) thereof as amended by this Directive, and for the implementation of Directive 2012/19/EU in respect of Article 16(9) thereof as amended by this Directive, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council9.

(10)

Since the objectives of this Directive, namely to improve the waste management in the Union, and thereby to contribute to the protection, preservation and improvement of the quality of the environment and to the prudent and rational utilisation of natural resources, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, but can rather, by reason of the scale and effects of the measures, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.

(11)

Directives 2000/53/EC, 2006/66/EC and 2012/19/EU should therefore be amended accordingly.

(12)

In accordance with the Joint Political Declaration of 28 September 2011 of Member States and the Commission on explanatory documents10, Member States have undertaken to accompany, in justified cases, the notification of their transposition measures with one or more documents explaining the relationship between the components of a directive and the corresponding parts of national transposition instruments. With regard to this Directive, the legislator considers the transmission of such documents to be justified,

HAVE ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE: