Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-21-Speech-2-299"
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"en.20031021.11.2-299"2
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".
Mr President, the Commission is fully aware of the above-mentioned issues. It has analysed the matter and I can inform Parliament, as Mr Lehne has already mentioned, that this morning the Commission decided to send a letter of formal notice to the German Government because the Commission considers that it has infringed Article 28 of the Treaty and Article 7 of Directive 94/62/EC.
May I stress that the Commission is not questioning the setting up of a deposit system as such, but rather the modalities under which this is occurring. The reasons for this are as follows: firstly, there are no nationwide return systems. At present the two systems deemed to be nationwide, Lekkerland-Tobaccoland and VFV, have a market share of no more than 12% of the beverages which are subject to the deposit. Furthermore, they mostly cover small kiosks and canteens with a sales area of less than 200 square metres. Under the relevant law, these smaller outlets have a legal obligation to take back empty bottles and cans of the 'same type, shape and size', but only of the same brands which they themselves sell.
Second, the so-called individual solutions
in German – pose a continuous problem to intra-Community trade. They are a direct result of the relevant German law under which the obligation for bigger retailers to take back empty packaging applies only to packaging of the same type, shape and size as that which they sell. Today a number of individual solutions exist and they pose serious problems. This provision in German law induces major retail chains to force European producers to modify the packaging of their products and the European Court of Justice holds that, when EU producers are obliged to modify their packaging in order to market their products, that fact alone amounts to a barrier to intra-Community trade. Extra costs are incurred and the import of products becomes more burdensome.
Third, the systems are not all fully interoperable. Indeed, on the one hand, for the growing number of individual solutions there is no legal obligation to take back packaging which belongs to any of the other collection systems, even if this differs only slightly from the one that they sell. Furthermore, as far as the interoperability between VFV and Lekkerland-Tobaccoland is concerned, it appears that a number of technical issues have not yet been settled. For example, it is still not clear how a financial clearing of the deposits between several systems will work.
Fourth, delisting persists and one-way products that are not an individual solution are not to be found on the shelves of certain stores. We have firm evidence that several major retail chains in Germany have delisted. Importers from other European countries are particularly affected by this, as they sell their drinks almost exclusively in one-way packaging for reasons mainly related to long-distance deliveries. Perhaps in the case of a number of existing individual solutions, some well-established importers do not necessarily suffer in their protected arrangements, but this does not compensate for the major losses incurred through the substantial decline in imports from other Member States as a result of this fragmentation of the German market for these products. Therefore the Commission has now decided to issue a letter of formal notice in which it raises these and some other questions and it has asked the German Government to reply to those questions and to provide a justification for the measures undertaken."@en1
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