Industry splits over pausing the EU packaging-representative duty to 2035 as Parliament's 19 October vote nears

How the authorised-representative duty works

Under the PPWR, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, a company that makes packaging or packaged goods available directly to an end user in a Member State is a producer there, with that country’s registration, reporting and fee duties. Article 45(3) adds a further step for a producer based in another EU country: it must appoint an authorised representative for EPR in the destination country, a local firm that carries its obligations there. The Commission’s proposal, COM(2025) 982, says this can mean appointments in up to 26 Member States and is particularly costly for small and medium-sized enterprises³.

The Commission’s answer is two lines long. Article 2 of the proposal reads:

“The application of Article 45(3) of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 shall be suspended until 1 January 2035.”

Article 1 does the same for Article 56(3) of the Batteries Regulation, (EU) 2023/1542. Producers outside the EU are treated differently: under the second paragraph of Article 2, each Member State must either require them to appoint a representative by written mandate or ensure traceability and enforcement by other means. Recital 10 calls the whole measure preliminary, pending a wider EPR reform.

Germany shows what the duty means in practice. The Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister (ZSVR), which runs the LUCID register, says foreign companies without a German branch that sell directly to end users must name a representative before their first sale, and that “There is no exemption from this obligation.” The representative must have a German office, sign a written agreement in German and take over system contracts, volume reports and completeness declarations in its own name⁸.

What has happened since the committee vote

Committee vote, 5 October. ENVI voted at first reading on procedure 2025/0395(COD), which covers batteries and packaging, and on the sister procedure 2025/0396(COD), which covers waste, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and single-use plastic waste. The Legislative Observatory file lists the vote without a result or vote count¹. The rapporteur for both files, from the EPP group, was appointed on 11 March 2026.

Reaction, 6 to 8 October. EuroCommerce, which represents Europe’s retail and wholesale sector, published its response on 6 October. Its release says the committee backed a proposal on authorised-representative requirements for EU-based micro and small enterprises, and it asked for a 12-month grace period to address PPWR implementation problems¹⁵. Germany’s crafts federation ZDH followed on 8 October, describing the vote as a first step towards easing packaging rules for craft businesses.

Two reports tabled, 9 October. ENVI tabled A10-0266/2026 for the batteries and packaging regulation and A10-0267/2026 for the directive covering WEEE, waste and single-use plastics. Both procedure files give 19 October 2026 as the indicative plenary date and show each file as awaiting Parliament’s first-reading position².

Austria’s note, 9 October. The Council secretariat circulated note 14126/26, a public “any other business” item from Austria supported by Czechia and Estonia. It asks the Commission for a de minimis exemption covering registration, fees and representatives for producers placing minimal packaging volumes, a flat-rate contribution for very small producers above that line, a single EU registration entry point, and a pause on the Article 45(3) duty for small EU producers⁶.

Environment Council, 12 October. Ministers took the Austrian point under other business. The Council’s meeting page lists it as information only, with no decision recorded; the main items were the emissions trading review and positions for the COP31 and COP17 summits⁵.

The Council’s last formal word on the file remains its press release of 24 June 2026, which said that, given strong reservations by a vast majority of member states and the coming EPR review under the circular economy act:

“negotiations within the Council on the two last proposals concerning EPR were discontinued.”

The European Commission’s packaging waste page still says the proposal is being examined by Parliament and the Council⁷.

What a plenary vote can and cannot do. A vote on 19 October would give Parliament its first-reading position on each file. ZDH’s update notes that the plenary and the Council must both still approve the compromise, and EuroCommerce urged the co-legislators to reach an agreement swiftly. That assumes a Council mandate, which does not yet exist: until the Council adopts one there is no second text to negotiate against, and the Council has set no date for adoption.

What the Commission proposed and what the committee is reported to have changed

The Commission text is short and public; the committee’s version is not yet confirmed. EuroCommerce’s release says ENVI limited the relief to EU-based micro and small enterprises¹⁵, and ZDH describes the vote as pausing the duty in each export country until 2035. Neither is an official Parliament or Council source, and SPI has not yet confirmed the committee amendments against the text of report A10-0266/2026. The table therefore separates the two.

The paper trail behind the committee text is dated. The Legislative Observatory lists draft reports PE788.916 and PE788.917 of 22 May 2026, amendments PE790.771 and PE790.772 tabled on 1 July, and a French Senate reasoned opinion of 8 April 2026². The directive file also records a European Economic and Social Committee opinion of 18 March 2026 and a Committee of the Regions opinion of 7 May 2026. ITRE and IMCO, the industry and internal market committees, gave no opinion on the packaging file.

Three points in the official text matter for planning. The measure is a pause, not a repeal, and the Commission gives no reason for the 2035 end date. It removes only the appointment duty: the Commission’s proposal does not touch producer status, registration or fees in the destination country. And it is a stopgap, which recital 9 links to a wider EPR reform the Commission expected in 2026.

Who is exposed: non-EU sellers, marketplaces and EU exporters

Non-EU sellers. No version on the table frees them. The Commission’s Article 2 keeps the written-mandate route or alternative enforcement for third-country packaging producers, and recital 6 says enforcement against them is harder³. In Germany, any company based abroad without a German branch that sells directly to end users must name a representative now, whatever its home country, according to the ZSVR.

Marketplaces. Platforms sit where non-EU sellers meet EU consumers. Germany has required electronic marketplaces since 1 July 2022 to check that sellers comply with packaging law and to stop offers from unregistered sellers, the ZSVR says⁹. Austria’s note asks the Commission to explore, in the Circular Economy Act, platforms meeting EPR obligations on behalf of the producers selling through them.

Amazon. The SPI Buyers Database profile records Amazon country sites for France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. Its Form 10-K reports International segment net sales of USD 161,894 million for 2025, a segment that also includes non-EU markets such as the UK and Japan¹³. The SPI Buyers Database profile, drawing on the same filing, gives UK net sales of USD 43,212 million and Japan net sales of USD 30,688 million for 2025.

SPI calculation: USD 43,212 million plus USD 30,688 million is USD 73,900 million, about 46% of the USD 161,894 million International segment. The remaining 54% covers Amazon’s other non-US markets, including its EU country sites, but the filing does not split out an EU total, so none is given here.

Alibaba. Its international commerce arm, which runs AliExpress, reported revenue of RMB 144,170 million for the year to 31 March 2026, up 9%, according to its fiscal 2026 results¹⁴. International retail revenue of RMB 117,731 million grew mainly on AliExpress and other international businesses, the company said.

EU exporters. The pause is aimed at EU producers selling directly across borders, chiefly online, which the Commission says may face up to 26 appointments. Under the reported committee version only micro and small firms would benefit, and medium-sized exporters, the group ZDH speaks for, would not.

The cost argument. The nine associations behind the March statement say national representation costs can exceed the EPR fees actually due on small volumes, and they frame the burden around SMEs and micro-enterprises selling across borders¹⁷. None of the published statements or Commission documents puts a euro figure on that cost, and the Commission prepared no impact assessment for the proposal, so no total can be given.

Representative providers and scheme operators. Firms that act as representatives charge fees for it, the ZSVR notes, so a pause would shrink demand from EU clients, while non-EU mandates stay. EXPRA, the alliance of packaging scheme operators, signed the March statement backing the pause, which shows that the scheme side does not speak with one voice.

SPI calculation: RMB 144,170 million against RMB 132,300 million is a rise of RMB 11,870 million, or 9.0%, matching the company’s own figure. Retail was RMB 117,731 million of the FY2026 total, about 82%.

The enforcement gap behind the debate

The split is less about cost than about reach. A representative gives a national authority someone on its own territory to hold liable for reports and fees. Recital 6 of the Commission’s proposal accepts this for third-country producers, saying enforcement against them is harder, and the April joint reaction argues that loosening the duty for anyone makes bypassing it easier¹⁸.

Both camps say they want the same end state. The April signatories argue that the representative role should be better harmonised, defined and improved rather than sidelined. The March coalition argues that opposing the pause would entrench a patchwork of national requirements, and asks for EU-level compliance and enforcement tools instead. The disagreement is over what happens in the years before those tools exist, and that is the period in which the 2035 end date, or the committee’s reported narrower scope, would apply.

The pause also lands on a system already in use. Germany moved from a voluntary representative in July 2021 to a mandatory one in August 2026⁹. Austria’s note concedes that a representative is useful for enforcement, but asks for a volume test, and its de minimis idea would reach registration and fees as well, which no Parliament text is reported to cover. The same note asks that the Commission’s planned implementing act on registration wait until a single EU entry point exists, which would add a second moving part to national registers.

How representative duties compare across PPWR, batteries, WEEE, Germany and France

The packaging duty is not unique. The WEEE Directive, 2012/19/EU, already requires a producer that sells electrical equipment by distance into another Member State to appoint a representative there, by written mandate (Article 17(2) and (3)). Sweden’s environmental agency, Naturvårdsverket, says battery producers from other EU countries or outside the EU that sell by distance to Swedish end users need a representative, under rules applying since 18 August 2025¹¹.

National law moved the same way. In France, the Senate record of 29 June 2026 shows Article 2 of the textile-industry bill adding Article L. 541-10-9-1 to the Environmental Code: a person not established in France and subject to EPR designates, by written mandate, a person established in France, who is subrogated in all its obligations¹². SPI has not yet confirmed its Journal officiel reference.

Germany is the clearest case of a national system built around the duty. The first amended Packaging Act let international companies without a German branch appoint a representative from 3 July 2021, and from July 2022 extended registration to all packaging types and put check duties on marketplaces and fulfilment providers, the ZSVR says⁹. Since 12 August 2026 the appointment is mandatory under the PPWR and the VerpackDG, LUCID will not complete a new foreign registration without it, and the producer can name only one representative.

The batteries rules show the limits of the role. Naturvårdsverket says a producer established in the country where it first makes batteries available cannot appoint such a representative, and that a producer acting through a power of attorney remains fully responsible for its obligations. Under the Commission’s proposal, Member States would have to keep the representative route for third-country battery sellers, while for packaging they could choose other means.