Ref. Ares(2021)3812338 - 10/06/2021
Summary record
Webex meeting by Marius Vascega, HoC to Commissioner
Seinkevicius, with Business Europe 19th May 2020 13:00
Participants:
Business Europe (BE):
Mr Alexandre Affre, Deputy Director General
Mr Leon de Graaf, adviser
European Commission:
Marius Vaščega, Head of Cabinet (MV)
Rozalina Petrova, Member of Cabinet
Ian Hodgson, DG ENV
The meeting was organised at BE’s request. The topics were:
European Green Deal (EGD) and COVID-19
Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP)
Industrial Emissions Directive (IED)
BE expressed their commitment to success of the Green Deal. BE believe the EGD should be
a key part of the recovery plan, which should also fully integrate impacts of COVID-19. BE
also expressed interest in the biodiversity aspects of the EGD and in CEAP being part of the
recovery plan. BE were also interested in the plans for the review of the IED, which is a less
known, but an important instrument.
MV outlined the main aspects of the EGD and CEAP, and noted that the Biodiversity strategy
and Farm to Fork, which are the next important steps in the EGD, should be coming out in
the coming days, while the recovery Plan would be launched a bit later. He noted that it was
too early to discuss the recovery plan, before that Country specific recommendations were
to be adopted. Importance of Sustainable Product Policy initiative as one of the flagships of
the CEAP has been outlined. It would address issues such as durability, recyclability,
reparability and planned obsolescence of products. It is envisaged that product hierarchy
would be discussed in the impact assessment.
On the IED, MV recalled that the review of the IED was announced in the Green Deal
communication. The Impact Assessment needs to get under way in view of that. There will
be plenty of opportunity for input by stakeholders during the process, while BE’s member
industries have provided responses to the inception impact assessment.