The new EU course: circularity is a lever for security and competitiveness

A better and generally more efficient use of resources - and especially of recycled materials - as a buffer to protect Europe from geopolitical shocks and other factors that could jeopardise the security of member states, businesses and citizens. The Von der Leyen bis legislature began in December 2024 under the sign of a correction of the green course taken (for some, excessively) in 2019 with the Green Deal. In fact, the priorities for the five-year period 2024-29 are different: to develop a strong and safe Europe, but above all one that is economically competitive. Hence the revision of European environmental regulations, key instruments of the Green Deal, the subject of the four Omnibus measures presented so far by the Commission (but not yet approved by the Parliament, which is 'studying' Omnibus I and will approve it, indicatively, by the summer). And then there was the Clean Industrial Deal, a plan that aims to transform the green transition - whose primary objectives, such as achieving climate neutrality by 2050 and cutting emissions by 55% (compared to 1990) by 2030, have not changed at all - into an engine of economic development.

In this context, circularity, the pivot of some of the strategies adopted by the Commission from 2019 onwards, has remained at the forefront: structuring a highly efficient economic mechanism that uses and reuses resources without wasting them can represent significant savings for the European Union in the exploitation of limited natural resources - such as water, to which the Commission dedicated the Water Resilience Strategy adopted on 4 June - but also of rare or energy-intensive materials such as glass, aluminium and plastic. Putting the 27 safe from potentially destabilising 'foreign' dependencies. According to experts working in the European institutions, increasing competitiveness through innovation and circularity, and making the latter 'mainstream', could be the decisive challenge for the Union in the next five to ten years. "After more than 50 years of waste legislation, after two action plans for the circular economy and the European Green Deal, we are a long way from what could be called a transition," began Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for the Environment, Water Resilience and the Circular and Competitive Economy (the first to have this reference in the post), at the opening of Green Week 2025, dedicated to circularity, held in Brussels between 3 and 5 June.

Whether the challenge can be met or not depends on action on a number of fronts. The first is to increase the use of recycled raw materials, which according to Eurostat data for 2023 is 11.8% of the total. This is the highest share of recycled raw materials used ever achieved in the EU, but it is still too low: the goal is to "double it to 24% by 2030", said Roswall. This is an ambitious goal given that the growth between 2022 and 2023 was 0.2 per cent. To increase this percentage, work needs to be done in several areas. First of all, that of the costs of recycled raw materials, which are higher than those of virgin raw materials produced in non-European countries. In the case of textiles, for example, the cost of the recycled product is three times as much as the virgin one.

"If raw material prices do not reflect the impact they have on the planet, there is a problem and we have to start here; national governments should shift taxes from labour to materials,' said Heather Grabbe, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank during the aforementioned Green Week. 'Europeans currently consume three times more than the 'average' African and on the one hand we extract too much, going beyond the planet's capacity, and on the other hand we have developed a massive dependence on raw material imports. This is about economic security and not autarky'.

Then there is the issue of different national - sometimes regional - waste regulations. And the movement of waste and/or recycled raw materials between countries. "Recycled materials should be free to move around. And we will work to simplify procedures to ensure a high quality of recycling in Europe,' Roswall said at a meeting on the sidelines of Green Week. The topic of waste collection - in Europe the obligation of separate collection for textiles has just come into force - and disposal remains central. Member states will have to recycle at least 60 per cent of municipal waste by 2030 and 65 per cent by 2035, and the amount of waste sent to landfill should be reduced to 10 per cent or less by the same date. Yet countries such as Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria have been reprimanded by the Commission for failing to meet previous targets.