The European Parliament plenary session on 22 November 2023 marked a decisive step in the EU's overhaul of packaging law. MEPs adopted their negotiating position on the proposed Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) with 426 votes in favour, 125 against, and 74 abstentions—clearing the way for trilogue talks with the Council under the Belgian presidency in early 2024.
The Parliament's position retained ambitious elements from the European Commission's November 2022 proposal: mandatory design-for-recycling requirements, recycled-content targets for plastic packaging, and restrictions on certain single-use formats. For flexible packaging converters, the vote signalled that recyclability would move from voluntary industry guidance toward binding EU-wide design criteria within a fixed timeline.
Industry associations split on the outcome. Brand owners and material suppliers welcomed harmonisation across member states, while some converter groups warned that reuse targets and format bans needed clearer derogations for food-contact laminates. Application engineers at export machinery suppliers began fielding questions about how future design-for-recycling grades would affect laminate complexity and slitting acceptance criteria.
With Parliament's mandate locked, attention shifted to the Council, which was expected to adopt its negotiating position before year-end. Converters selling into the EU market started mapping which SKUs would require substrate simplification or recyclability documentation once the regulation entered force—well before the 2030 recyclability deadline became binding.
For equipment buyers, the November vote did not change immediate procurement timelines, but it confirmed that PPWR would replace Directive 94/62/EC as a regulation rather than a directive—meaning fewer transposition gaps between member states and faster alignment of extended producer responsibility fees with recyclability performance.