After last month's announcement by environment minister Michael Meacher that the UK missed its waste recovery target by 2% in 2001, the Lords committee, was concerned that the European Union might fine the UK in the same way as they have fined Greece for another breach of EU regulations – with daily fines based on the member state's GDP.
But Sheila McKinley, head of the Producer Responsibility Unit of DEFRA, was confident that this would not happen, since the UK has now moved past the 2001 target of 50% recovery.
She said: “Greece is facing a 20,000 euro a day – that's about 12,500 – fine. But that's just until their infraction is rectified. It's not likely that the EU would fine someone if the infraction is already corrected.”
Mrs McKinley also told the Lords committee that since it would take quite some time to get a system for fining the UK through the European courts, it was not likely that officials in Brussels would go to the trouble of doing so.
But Mrs McKinley admitted there is still a slim chance of penalties occurring, telling the committee: “It's up to them if they want to take the UK up on this.”
PRNs
Having heard from Wastepack and SEPA in previous sessions of the inquiry on the costs to industry associated with the European directive on packaging and packaging waste, the committee wanted to know if the PRN system needed any changes in order to make sure that this non-compliance would not happen again. But Mrs McKinley said that the industry is generally content with the system.
“Most businesses think the PRN system has allowed them to comply at much lower costs,” she said. “It may well be that we look at the PRN to see if any changes are needed to the details, but on the whole industry is broadly happy with it.”
Corbey Proposals
The committee also heard from Dr Mark Downs, head of Recycling Policy at the DTI, supported by senior economist Trevor Reid. Dr Downs told the committee of his fears that industry would face huge costs because of a revision to the original EU recovery targets to 80% by 2006 as was recommended by Dutch MEP Dorette Corbey.
“The added costs of the Corbey proposals of 80% could easily be 1 billion on top for industry over the five years,” Dr Downs said.
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