The European Parliament has adopted its negotiating position on changes to the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). The position supports extending EU CBAM beyond basic materials to more downstream goods. These include finished steel and aluminium products such as fasteners, wire, springs and household articles. MEPs also backed stronger anti-circumvention rules. These would lower the threshold for treating small changes to goods as circumvention. The Commission could also apply default values based on the true country of origin where it finds a pattern of circumvention.

The European Parliament has adopted its position on changes to the market stability reserve for the second EU emissions trading system (EU ETS II), covering buildings, road transport and additional sectors. MEPs approved a provisional agreement with the Council of the EU to strengthen the reserve so that it can reduce sharp carbon-price fluctuations and limit their effects on consumers. The measures require Member States to give priority to addressing the social effects of EU ETS II when spending auction revenues and to consider extending the existing price-control mechanism. The European Commission will assess by October 2027 how EU ETS II is operating and whether the measures protecting vulnerable households remain appropriate.

The European Parliament’s Internal Market and Environment committees have adopted their position on the rules on how firms can validate their environmental marketing claims. The rules create a verification system and penalties, requiring companies to obtain approval before using any environmental marketing claims which would be assessed by accredited verifiers within 30 days. Companies which do not comply may be excluded from procurements, lose their revenues and face a fine of at least at 4% of their annual turnover. Building on the recent EU ban on greenwashing, the new rules stipulate that companies could still mention offsetting schemes if they have already reduced their emissions as much as possible and use these schemes for residual emissions only. These rules will now be voted upon at an upcoming plenary session.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Internal market and Consumer Protection has adopted its position on new rules combatting late payments. The draft rules aim to improve the payment discipline of all actors ie large companies, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and public authorities, as well as boosting the competitiveness of companies, particularly SMEs. A stricter maximum payment term of 30 days in both business-to-business and government-to-business transactions (where the public authority is the debtor) has introduced, with limited exceptions, to standardise timely payments among companies and public authorities. The adopted text also introduces an automatic payment of accrued interest and compensation fees for late payments to protect SMEs against bad payers and ensure timely payments. The proposal also introduces new enforcement, redress and awareness-raising measures and encourages the use of e-tools for SMEs.

The European Parliament’s Environment Committee has adopted its position on the proposed revision of Directive 2008/98/EC (the Waste Framework Directive). Its proposals include increasing the binding waste reduction targets proposed by the European Commission by at least 20% in food processing and manufacturing and 40% in retail, restaurants, food services and households. The new rules will also set up extended producer responsibility for textile products, clothing and footwear whereby economic operators would cover the costs for their separate collection, sorting and recycling. The file will be followed up by the new Parliament after the June 2024 European elections.

The European Parliament’s Environment Committee has adopted its position on a proposed regulation on preventing plastic pallet losses to reduce microplastic pollution. The Committee has proposed to improve the definition of plastic pellets, used as feedstock in plastic product manufacturing and plastic recycling operations, to also include powders, cylinders, beads and flakes. Under the new rules, all entities carrying out economic activities that involve the handling of plastic pallets would be required to ensure that losses are avoided and to take immediate action to contain and clean up spills and losses where these occur. The regulation would also require economic operators to establish a risk assessment plan for each installation that handles annually over 1,000 tonnes of plastic pellets. MEPs have also proposed that all storage and transport containers carrying plastic pellets should be labelled with a specific pictogram and information linked to their danger, potential to harm the environment, the need to avoid release and collect any spillage. The Parliament is scheduled to vote on its position during the April 2024 plenary session.

The European Parliament has adopted its position at the first reading of the new Soil Monitoring Law which will oblige Member States to monitor and assess the health of soils on their territories and achieve healthy soils by 2050. MEPs have proposed a five-level classification to assess soil health (high, good, moderate, ecological status, degraded and critically degraded soils), with good or high ecological status considered healthy. Member States will also have to investigate, assess and clean up contaminated sites where are unacceptable risks to human health and the environment. In these cases, the ‘polluter pays’ principle applies where costs must be paid by the polluters. The new Parliament will now consider the new law after the European elections in June 2024.

The European Parliament has adopted its second-reading position on proposed changes to EU air passenger rights rules, voting to maintain existing protections and rejecting attempts by EU Member States to weaken them. MEPs voted to keep passengers’ right to compensation for flight delays of more than three hours, opposing a proposal by the European Council to apply compensation only after delays of between four-to-six hours depending on flight distance. Parliament is also opposed to lowering compensation amounts, backing levels of between €300 and €600 depending on the length of the flight.

The European Parliament has adopted at first reading the legislative proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2009/65/EC (UCITS), Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD IV) and the Investment Firms Directive (EU) 2019/2034 (IFD) as regards the treatment of concentration risk towards central counterparties (CCPs) and the counterparty risk on centrally cleared derivative transactions.

The European Parliament has adopted at first reading the legislative proposal for a regulation amending Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 as regards the scope of the rules for benchmarks, the use in the EU of benchmarks provided by an administrator located in a third country, and certain reporting requirements.

The European Parliament has adopted its proposal to revamp the EU Pharmaceutical Legislation, which includes a Directive on the Union code regarding medicinal products for human use, and repealing Directive 2001/83/EC and Directive 2009/35/EC and a Regulation which repeals and replaces Regulation (EC) No 726/2004, the Regulation (EC) No 141/2000 (Orphan Regulation) and repeals and incorporates relevant parts of Regulation (EC) No 1901/2006 (Paediatric Regulation) to foster innovation and increase supply, accessibility, and affordability of medicines. This is the first major revision of the EU Pharmaceutical Legislation in over 20 years. MEPs want to introduce a minimum regulatory data protection period of seven and a half years, plus two years of market protection, following a marketing authorisation. MEPs also want to introduce market entry rewards and milestone payment reward schemes, to boost research and the development of novel antimicrobials, to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR). They support the introduction of a 'transferable data exclusivity voucher' for priority antimicrobials, providing for a maximum of 12 additional months of data protection for an authorised product.

The European Parliament has adopted at first reading the legislative proposal for a regulation amending Regulations (EU) 2017/1129, (EU) 596/2014 and (EU) 600/2014 and for a directive amending Directive 2014/65/EU to make public capital markets in the EU more attractive for companies and to facilitate access to capital for small and medium-sized enterprises.