Serge Wilmes, Luxembourg's Minister of the Environment, Climate and Biodiversity; Credit: © SIP / Claude Piscitelli

On Monday 18 December 2023, Luxembourg's Minister of the Environment, Climate and Biodiversity, Serge Wilmes, participated in his first Environment Council in Brussels; the main points on the agenda were the adoption of a general approach on the proposed regulation on packaging and packaging waste, two orientation debates on soil and forest monitoring as well as an exchange on the EU's 2040 climate target.

About the proposed regulation on packaging and packaging waste

The draft regulation on packaging and packaging waste, which would replace the current directive, aims to reduce the production of packaging waste, promote high-quality recycling, and stimulate the market for secondary raw materials. At the same time, it seeks to improve consumer information, create new business opportunities by promoting reuse, and reduce the EU's dependence on resource imports. The proposal aims to harmonise criteria linked to extended producer responsibility, as well as labeling, marking and information requirements.

After lengthy discussions, the Council managed to adopt, on the basis of a very large majority, a general approach with regard to this issue.

In his intervention, Minister Wilmes supported the importance of establishing a harmonised framework to reduce the impact of packaging and packaging waste on resource consumption. He highlighted the importance of reuse as a means of prevention, which must coexist with quality recycling to achieve an increasingly circular economy. The agreement reached will allow the Belgian presidency to begin negotiations with the European Parliament to harmonise the management of packaging and packaging waste in a single European market.

About the Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive

Ministers also held a policy debate on the Commission's proposal for an EU directive on soil monitoring and resilience. The said proposal aims to restore EU soils to a good state of health by 2050. In order to fill the knowledge gap on European soils, as well as to enable the comparability of soils in terms of their capacity to provide ecosystem services, the proposal establishes an integrated monitoring framework for all soils within the EU. The Commission's proposal also covers sustainable soil management and the restoration of contaminated sites.

Indeed, 60-70% of EU soils are currently in poor health, and a billion tonnes of soil is washed away each year through water erosion, meaning the remaining fertile top layer is rapidly disappearing. The costs linked to land degradation are estimated at more than €50 billion per year.

In this context, Minister Wilmes highlighted the importance of soils for the supply of drinking water, food, pasture, wood and other natural resources, as well as for mitigation and resilience to the effects climate change and natural disasters. The Minister welcomed the Commission's proposal and the objectives sought therein, while emphasising that the proposal should be refined in order to ensure proper implementation on the ground.

About the EU forest monitoring framework

In the afternoon, ministers discussed the proposed regulation aimed at establishing an integrated forest monitoring system at EU level. The proposal constitutes the main legislative initiative of the “New EU Forestry Strategy for 2030”. Its main objective is the improvement, comparability and accessibility of available information on the state and management of European forests.

Given that existing national forest inventories often do not provide sufficient information, Minister Wilmes welcomed the proposal to establish a system for collecting harmonised and standardised data, also including ecological indicators. In this sense, Minister Wilmes expressed his hope that the proposed forest monitoring system will make it possible to better manage European forests and improve their resilience to climate change.

Referring to the grants recently introduced in Luxembourg for the provision of ecosystem services in forest environments (“Klimabonusbësch”), the Minister noted that with the new system in place, we will be able to fairly compensate forest owners working towards forest resilience.