The ECR Group welcomes the successful conclusion of trilogue negotiations on including food and textile waste in the Waste Framework Directive.

The ECR Group welcomes the successful conclusion of trilogue negotiations on including food and textile waste in the Waste Framework Directive. This is the first agreement between the Commission, Council, and Parliament in the new legislative term. The goal is to cut food waste across the supply chain – from production to households – and reduce textiles in municipal waste. ECR rapporteur Anna Zalewska said: “Today, we’ve taken concrete steps to reduce waste without drowning businesses in bureaucracy. At the same time, we’ve ensured that policies to reduce food waste have absolutely no negative impact on the agricultural sector.”

Zalewska stressed that one of her conservative group’s main focuses was to make food donations easier: “We’ve ensured that unsold food can be donated or redistributed via platforms like ‘Too Good To Go’ without unnecessary hurdles.”

For the ECR, it was also important that the rules for selling imperfect fruit and vegetables will also be relaxed. “Produce with minor visual flaws can now be sold directly on-site,” Zalewska explained. “This supports shorter supply chains for farmers and gives consumers access to fresh, affordable produce.”

Another important change is the ban on last-minute cancellations of wholesale agricultural orders. “We’ve secured a rule that stops cancellations of orders for primary farm products at short notice. These practices have harmed producers for too long and will now be banned,” said Zalewska.

In the textile sector, the directive introduces rules to make producers more responsible for reducing textile waste. “For the ECR, it was crucial to exclude second-hand shops from paying a fee for every item they sell,” Zalewska noted. “Such charges would go against the goal of this directive, which is to promote circularity by encouraging repair and reuse.”

“We also gave micro-enterprises more time and made sure that member states, if they choose to, only require minimal reporting and charge the lowest possible fees”, Zalewska concluded.

The European Parliament’s negotiating mandate dates from the last legislature, but has been taken over by the Environment Committee for the current term.

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