Brussels endorses the waste tax that Spain will introduce in 2025 as a measure to reduce waste

Brussels – The European Commission has endorsed the new garbage tax that all Spanish municipalities must apply from April 2025 as one of the viable measures to reduce waste outlined in the European waste directive.

This has been indicated by the Vice-President responsible for the European Green Deal, Maros Sefcovic, in response to a parliamentary question from the Spanish PP delegation in the European Parliament, clarifying that the Commission offers a range of actions from which EU governments can choose what best suits their needs.

“The annex to the directive contains a non-exhaustive list of examples of economic instruments and other measures to incentivize the application of the waste hierarchy that Member States can use discretionally to cover the costs of waste management,” states Sefcovic.

The Slovak commissioner also recalled that, based on the principle of ‘the polluter pays’, the new regulation “determines that the costs related to waste management, including the necessary infrastructure and its operation, must be borne by the initial producer of the waste, the current holder, or the previous holder of the waste.”

According to the standard, Member States must aim to achieve an indicative EU-wide target of a 30% reduction in food waste by 2025 and 50% by 2030.

For this purpose, the directive requires capitals to adopt measures to prevent waste generation and, although it does not mandate the use of any specific instrument, it does include in its examples actions such as fees and restrictions applicable to landfill and waste incineration operations, pay-as-you-throw systems that impose charges based on the actual amount of waste generated, among others.

“These measures can also vary depending on the actors to whom they are imposed, such as businesses, producers, or households,” Sefcovic added in his response to the ‘popular’, who emphasize that “it was not necessary to bleed the citizens” through a tax they call “excessive,” to correctly transpose the directive.

This tax has been harshly criticized from the municipalities governed by the PP, who lament that it has been imposed “without dialogue” and without respecting their autonomy and see in Brussels’ response evidence that the Government could have opted for other measures than the tax.

For its part, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) has requested the Government to reform the law by which the garbage tax has been created, which they consider “complicated to understand and apply.” (December 3)