The European Commission has endorsed the new garbage rate that all municipalities in Spain must apply from April 2025 as one of the viable measures to reduce waste included in the European waste directive.
This was indicated by the vice president responsible for the European Green Deal, Maros Sefcovic, in response to a parliamentary question from the Spanish PP delegation in the European Parliament and in which he clarified that the Commission offers a series of actions among which the governments of the EU can choose which one best suits their needs.
“The annex to the directive contains a non-exhaustive list of examples of economic instruments and other measures to incentivize the implementation of the waste hierarchy that Member States can use at their discretion to cover the costs of waste management,” says Sefcovic.
The Slovak commissioner also recalled that, based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle, the new regulations “determine that the costs related to waste management, including the costs corresponding to the necessary infrastructure and its operation, must be borne by borne by the initial producer of waste, the current holder or the previous holder of waste.”
According to the standard, Member States should aim to achieve an indicative EU-wide food waste reduction target of 30% in 2025 and 50% in 2030.
To this end, the directive thus requires that capitals adopt measures to prevent the generation of waste and, although it does not require the use of any specific instrument, it does include in its examples actions such as fees and restrictions applicable to landfill and incineration operations. of waste, payment systems for waste generation that impose rates according to the actual amount of waste generated, among others.
“These measures may also vary depending on the agents on whom they are imposed, such as, for example, companies, producers or households,” added Sefcovic in his response to the ‘popular’, who emphasize that “it was not “It is necessary to bleed the citizens” through a tax that they call a “tax”, to correctly transpose the directive.
This rate has been harshly criticized by the town councils governed by the PP, which regret that it was imposed “without dialogue” and without respecting their autonomy and see in Brussels’ response proof that the Government could have opted for other measures other than the rate.
For its part, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) has asked the Government to reform the law that created the garbage rate, which they consider “complicated to understand and apply.”
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