📌Plastic pollution: Council agrees its position for more ambitious legislation 🛍️👨⚖️▶️
📌Migration: LIBE delegation to inspect the situation in autonomous cities 🛫🇪🇦🔍
📌#ourocean: EC commits €300 million for clean and healthy oceans 🌊🏝️💰
Plastic pollution: Council agrees its position for more ambitious legislation🛍️👨⚖️▶️
➡️The new rules will ban the use of certain throwaway plastic products for which alternatives exist. The Council wants the Commission to publish guidelines, in consultation with member states, on examples of what is to be considered a single use plastic product. The Council wants the obligation to cover the costs of litter cleanup to be extended to apply also to companies which import or sell single-use plastic products or packaging in Europe. However, measures to prevent an increase in the consumption of single-use plastic products with no alternative will be taken at national level through the setting of national targets. To allow consumers to make better choices, the Council has been more specific about the markings on those single-use plastic products which are most frequently thrown away inappropriately. This mandate means that the Austrian Presidency of the Council can begin talks with the EP to put legislation in place.
🔜 A first trilogue meeting will take place on 6 November.
Migration: LIBE delegation to inspect the situation in autonomous cities🛫🇪🇦🔍
➡️ A Civil Liberties Committee delegation went to the Spanish towns of Melilla and Ceuta on a fact-finding mission. They checked the situation at both borders with Morocco and met local authorities as well as police representatives. They visited reception centres for immigrants, with a special focus on the situation of unaccompanied minors.
🔁 A committee can decide to organise missions to a member state, a country outside of the EU or to international conferences. Missions are composed of a limited numbers of members of the committee. Committees may also send, for no more than three days, a three-member delegation to agencies for which they are principally responsible.
#ourocean: EC commits €300 million for clean and healthy oceans🌊🏝️💰
➡️ The European Commission has announced €300 million of EU-funded initiatives, which include projects to tackle plastic pollution, make blue economy more sustainable and improve research and marine surveillance. This important contribution comes on top of the over €550 million committed at the Our Ocean conference last year in Malta. The EU has made 23 new commitments for improving the condition of our oceans and tapping their potential. These include funding for Research and Development projects to tackle plastic pollution, as well as for marine and maritime research, such as ecosystem assessments, seafloor mapping and innovative aquaculture systems. The new EU action also includes an investment to make the European blue economy – the economic sectors that rely on the ocean and its resources – more sustainable.
🔁 Every year, the Our Ocean conference takes place attracting tangible commitments from governments, companies and non-governmental organisations.
🔥 If you want to be updated, too, we suggest the European Parliament's press service http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room and the European Commission's news room https://europa.eu/newsroom/home_en