2023-07-13 06:48:26
The Walloon government will probably decide this Thursday on a new tax on litter which will entail a cost of 112 million euros for companies. The trade federation Comeos and the food industry federation Fevia find it “unacceptable that the government is asking in Belgium three times more than our neighboring countries, and this, for the same tax”, deplored the two organizations on Thursday in a press release.
The European directive of June 5, 2019 provides for “extended producer responsibility” for certain single-use plastic products. This responsibility implies, among other things, that producers and distributors must bear the costs linked to litter originating from their products.
It is up to each country to calculate the cost of litter to pay, and this is where the problem lies, according to Fevia. “In the project presented to Parliament, the cost of litter to be paid by companies for packaging amounts to almost 112 million euros. This amounts to an amount of more than 10 euros per inhabitant per year. However, our neighboring countries, such as France, Germany and the Netherlands, apply amounts that are an order of magnitude much lower”, denounces the CEO of Fevia, Bart Buysse.
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Dominique Michel, CEO of Comeos, also warns once morest this new tax, pointing out in passing that a recent study revealed an increase of more than 60% in cross-border purchases in France in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period. of the previous year. This new tax of 112 million euros represents “a new hard blow which only works in favor of foreign competition”.
This new invoice is also added to the already existing costs for companies in terms of packaging, namely 205 million euros for collection and recycling, 345 million euros for the federal tax on beverage packaging, likely to increase by an additional 60 million euros from October 1, 2023. With the addition of 112 million euros, this represents a total bill of 722 million euros for companies, figure the two federations.
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