Toia: “Reducing the distance between institutions and industry”

The PD Member of the European Parliament: “In the provisional agreement on the Packaging Regulation, we can say that we have achieved important results for the environment, for the economy of all European countries and for Italy in particular, overcoming the contrast fuelled by some between recycling and reuse”.

European Member of Parliament from the Democratic Party, Patrizia Toia, is among the leading figures on the active political scene regarding the PPWR, with a commitment that has enabled her to bring the initially very orthodox positions of the Council closer to the productive world. She talks about the intense parliamentary activity of constructing an agreement in her contribution.

«It has been a long and very hard negotiation - Patrizia Toia begins – but in the end, in the provisional agreement on the Packaging regulation we can honestly say that we have achieved important results for the environment, for the economy of all European countries and for Italy in particular, overcoming the contrast fuelled by some between recycling and reuse.

Overall, this regulation marks a step forward in the reduction of the weight and quantity of packaging in waste. They are results which cannot be taken for granted, most of all because we have had to deal with and come up against very hard and compact resistance of the Council, which had been immovable for a long time.

But by working in a cohesive way with colleagues and creating a "common approach”, enhancing the role of the Industry, Research and Energy Commission in the European Parliament, we have managed to significantly change the Commission’s initial proposal, safeguarding both Italian industrial interests and the environmental objectives of a circular economy, which aims at producing less waste and at reusing the recycled product as much as possible. We have demonstrated that the best way to defend the interests of our country is not opposition against any European environmental legislation, but, rather, participation in legislative activity with pro-European expertise and credibility».