23/04/2003
Drinks packaging systems
Fair competition between drinks packaging systems

The European Packaging Directive 94/62/EC was drafted with the intention of creating a comprehensive policy for all packaging and moving focus away from drinks packaging. Drinks packaging is, however, still subject arbitrarily to numerous additional national packaging rules. These measures cause distortions of trade, both within national boundaries and within the single market.

The drinks sector uses a variety of packaging materials in order to meet the needs of the product and the marketplace. It is the only sector which has traditionally offered a choice between reusable and single-use containers. Instead of being credited for this, the industry is being discriminated against.

Barriers to intra-Community trade and domestic distortions affecting the free choice of packaging materials and systems can only be overcome if the directly interested operators agree on balanced solutions and jointly promote these with EU and national policy makers. The conditions for fair competition between refillable and one-way drinks packaging systems should be identified: It should be possible to avoid discrimination if each system bears its own environmental costs and investments in refillable systems and traditionally functioning deposit-return systems should be recognised, but not be a means of restricting competition. The following conditions should help to reach this objective.

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